Control System

In the case of our chocolate packing machine, a matrix of 5 picaxe microcontrollers was considered. Each row dispenser and the integration system would have a microcontroller to control them and this would make up the 4 slave controllers. A fifth and final microcontroller would control the four slaves . Although this system is cheap and easy to produce, it would prove to be slow and hard for industry to tweak any programming issues. A Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) would be a more familiar method of control to industry.
PLC's have advantages that microcontrollers do not, like being able to deal with multiple input and output arrangements, operate at wider ranges of temperature and the ability to resist electrical noise and vibration which will be present in our machine. A PLC's programs are stored in non-volatile memory which has a battery backup. This prevents them from being lost if there is a complete loss of power. PLC's also have built in communication ports, making them able to communicate via a network to other machines. This would be extremely useful to control the machines that produce the chocolates in case of any blockages or other issues encountered during the packing process.

guys would you be able to post up any extra info that has been gathered or changes made.
I spoke a few days ago to gareth & he said our process drawing was slightly unclear, tom im posting up what I hope is clearer, have a look and see, add in anything extra that you think is relevant:

Machine Diagram