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 jointly with Spectrum Technology.
Delivery model: Spectrum handles the hardware and field integration; Silex builds the software, SCADA/HMI and dashboards. The same blue-chip partnership behind 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.
