Sectors

Driftwood Technology has experience in a variety of business sectors. The key sectors of interest are Coastal Terminal, Malt Plants, and IIoT devices.

Sector: Port Terminal

Port Terminals handle the transload of bulk commodities from railcar to vessel. The terminals share common characteristics such as: railcar unloading, weighing, inventory storage, commodity transfer, limited on-site commodity processing, and ship loading. Terminals are generally classified as a hazardous work environment, as such, they have stringent on-site work safety procedures. Terminals are generally unionized as well; in particular, most Stevedoring companies are unionized.

Driftwood Technology builds the SCADA system, the real time Operational database, and the ERP integration for Port Terminals.

Sector: Malt Plant

Malt Plants process grains to create malt. Malting is a very structured process that requires attention to the fine details; a minor mistake will create a large batch of pig feed. While a Malt Plant has similarities to a Port Terminal in terms of grain handling, its primary focus is on the production of malt. The malt process includes steps to dry, steep, germinate, kiln, and roast grain to create the final product. Malt production is a 24/7 process that cannot be interrupted; plant control is required at all times while a batch is in process. A typical annual capacity of a Malt plant is 120,000 metric tonnes.

Driftwood Technology builds the SCADA system, the real time Operational database, and the ERP integration for Malt Plants.

Sector: Industrial Internet of Things

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is the use of TCP/IP instead of Serial Protocols for communication between devices and the SCADA system. Even for devices that only have serial ports, these can be "converted" to use TCP/IP with Lantronix to look like an IIoT device. Most industrial facilities do not expose plant equipment to the Internet, so the "internet" in IIoT is a bit misleading. However, the transition to ethernet and non-PLC I/O is a significant change to plant automation.

Driftwood Technology builds the firmware and management tools for IIoT device, and then integrates those IIoT devices into SCADA implementations.