Bruce Gilham Jr.

All work · Industrial & manufacturing

Nissin Foods

A noodle plant weighed every pack and did nothing with the readings. Captured them off the serial ports into control charts the line operators watch.

Years
2013–2019
Sector
Food manufacturing
Role
Sole developer (software half of a two-firm bid)
Outcome
Still running

What was wrong

At an instant-noodle plant every pack crossed a checkweigher, and every reading was thrown away. Quality staff had no history and line operators had no live picture of whether a line was drifting.

What I built

Serial-to-IP converters on each scale mapped to virtual COM ports; a logger writing every reading to a central SQL Server; a real-time control chart the line operators watch with the acceptable band shaded; and a historical viewer for quality staff. Plus a production counting system converting raw pack counts to case totals per line, including a function written inside the Siemens WinCC program so totals appear on the plant HMI.

What happened

Rolled out line by line over five years and live in the plant through the last exchange.

Stack

LightSwitch WinForms SQL Server IIS Moxa serial-to-IP Siemens WinCC PLC / HMI integration
Running something like this? What I do about LightSwitch · What I do about VB6 & WinForms

Have a system like this one?

Tell me what it does, what it is written in, and what breaks when it goes down. I will say plainly whether I can help.

Tell me what it runs on

Related work

All work →
2011–2014Still running

Trulok / Trio Manufacturing

Aerospace fastener measurement · Sole developer

The Windows software behind an aerospace fastener measurement system, in production at Alcoa and Allfast years after hand-over.

WinForms C# .NET Framework 4 SQL Server Express Solartron Orbit USB probe
2011–2024Still running

Mason & Mason / DSM, Inc.

Right-of-way appraisal and eminent domain · Sole developer and architect

Thirteen years as the only developer for a right-of-way appraisal firm — an operating system built inside their Lotus Notes estate, then rebuilt twice as Microsoft discontinued the platform underneath it.

Silverlight LightSwitch Lotus Notes C# .NET SQL Server Lotus Notes / Domino
2013–2023Delivered

ACD LLC

Cryogenic pumps and turboexpanders · Lead developer

An in-house pump and turboexpander sizing program turned into a customer-facing service — designed so neither the calculation code nor the customer list ever left the client's servers.

Silverlight WCF C# .NET WPF IIS