The challenge
BPCL's Loni plant blends base oil with additive oil in precise ratios to produce finished lubricant. Operating it through a fixed wall-mounted control panel is rigid and location-bound. BPCL wanted operators to run the plant from a mobile device on the floor - starting pumps, operating valves, entering blend quantities, and watching tank levels - without losing the reliability of hardware control.
Rigidity
A fixed, wall-mounted control panel ties the operator to one spot on the plant floor.
Mobility
BPCL wanted the plant run from a mobile device - pumps, valves, quantities and tank levels in hand.
Reliability
The move to mobile could not sacrifice the reliability of direct hardware-level control.
What we built
An Android HMI (Human-Machine Interface) application - the plant's operator control panel on a tablet - each capability answering a specific operational stake above.
- ◆Direct equipment controlStart/stop pumps and motors, open/close motor-operated valves (MOVs), integrated with the plant PLC over industrial Modbus TCP.
- ◆Blend managementOperators enter blend quantities and set-points; the app drives the base-oil/additive-oil ratio.
- ◆Live monitoringReal-time tank levels and flow totalizers on screen.
- ◆Plant-branded operator UIA purpose-built interface for the Loni site, replacing the fixed panel with a mobile one.
The stack
Industrial-grade software on a hardware foundation — delivered as a complete integrated solution.
Delivery model: Silex builds SCADA software, HMI systems and dashboards, with hardware and field integration handled as part of the integrated solution. The same approach powers BPCL, Indian Railways and both airport projects — which is how a senior ~15-person software team delivers hardware-integrated systems at national scale.
Results
Deployed December 2022 and live at the BPCL Loni site - plant operators run blending from a tablet, with full hardware-level control, a fixed control panel replaced by a flexible, mobile HMI.
Why it matters
Bringing industrial control onto a mobile device - reliably, integrated with plant PLCs - is exactly the kind of pragmatic, hardware-aware software that mission-critical operators trust. It shows Silex builds for the plant floor, not just the browser. That is the same discipline Silex brings to a B2B ordering platform or a retail stack - engineered to your business, owned by you, and supported for the long run.
