Automation, PLC and instrumentation electricians

Automation and instrumentation is where Bream Bay Electrical's industrial background shows. Director Will Campbell worked for around 10 years inside major industrial facilities, as an Electrical and Instrument Technician at Fonterra Maungaturoto and an Electrical Technician at Refining NZ at Marsden Point, before establishing the company in 2019. That experience, backed by Industrial Measurement and Control Level 4 and Electrical Engineering Level 5 qualifications, is what we bring to PLC, instrumentation and safety-system work.

PLC and field wiring

We install and wire PLC panels, remote I/O, field instruments, variable speed drives, motors, local control stations, emergency stops, alarms and process interfaces. On a recent dryer safety upgrade that meant a new Allen-Bradley safety PLC, six remote safety panels and E-stop wiring to 26 DOL starters and 19 VSDs, all inside an operating dairy plant. We work from your drawings and standards, and where a site's records have drifted from what is installed, we help bring them back into step.

Instrumentation and controls

Pressure, flow, temperature, pH, conductivity and other process instrumentation, including calibration, loop checking, point-to-point verification and commissioning support. Instrument work is as much about the records as the wiring: every loop is checked and documented so the commissioning team can sign it off, and so the next technician can trust the drawing.

Safety-critical systems

Gas detection, emergency shutdown, fire-system and fire-pump interfaces, hazardous-area installations and safety PLC field integration. Will holds Electrical Apparatus in Explosive Atmospheres training, and we prepare the EEHA documentation that hazardous-area work requires. At Fonterra Kauri we were the main electrical contractor for the natural gas detection and isolation systems serving two dryer air heater rooms: methane, carbon monoxide and oxygen detection, Drager Regard 3900 panels, PLC and HMI interfaces, beacons and sounders, Modbus TCP, analogue and discrete I/O and hardwired shutdown logic. The full write-up is on our recent projects page.

Hazardous-area installations have their own standards on top of the general wiring rules, and the Electrical Workers Registration Board lists the explosive-atmosphere standards (the AS/NZS 60079 series) that this work must follow. Equipment selection, installation and the inspection records all have to line up with them, which is why the documentation is part of the job and not an afterthought.

Commissioning and documentation

A control system is finished when it is proven, not when it is wired. We support commissioning with point-to-point checks, loop tests, I/O verification against the design and marked-up drawings for anything that changed on site, so the engineer signing off has the evidence in front of them. For hazardous areas that includes the EEHA dossier: the equipment schedule, certificates and inspection records that the site auditor will ask for later.

Working with engineers and site teams

We are used to working alongside electrical engineers, automation engineers and other project stakeholders within operational industrial environments, under permit-to-work systems, electrical isolations, job safety analyses, inspection and test plans and document control. Established relationships with trusted Northland electrical and specialist subcontractors mean we can scale up for larger projects and multiple work fronts without losing control of quality. Our industrial electrical services page covers the distribution, switchboard and maintenance side of that work.

Fault finding on control systems

PLC and VSD fault finding, control valves and motors, switchgear and instrument loops are everyday work for us. A drive that trips on the same fault every few weeks, a transmitter that reads high after a washdown, or an interlock nobody can explain usually has a cause that a methodical check will find. We carry the test gear to check loops, signals and drive parameters on site, and we record what we find. Planned inspections and breakdown support are described on our maintenance and fault finding page.