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PROCESS AUTOMATION


A SINGLE VERSION OF THE TRUTH Global food


manufacturer Princes Group is using software from SolutionsPT to


illuminate a process black hole, reduce environmental impact and achieve a 10% boost in OEE


rinces is one of Europe’s largest food and drink groups, specialising in the manufacture of quality products and grocery supplies for millions of customers every day. The group is responsible for more than 350 food and drink products from many household brands, alongside the Princes’ branded range, examples include Napolina Italian cooking ingredients and Crosse & Blackwell, as well as everyday essentials such as Olivio, Flora, and Branston Beans. Building upon an established and valuable Industrial IT and software support relationship with SolutionsPT, Princes Group’s brief was to help them adopt digital technologies that made a single version of the truth available for the measurement, management and control of all operations data and equipment. Initially, the project pertained to a single site at Long Sutton, but the solution needed to be capable of scaling to become the blueprint for digital transformation throughout the globe. Julian Bolton, IT Director, Princes Group, explained the intention behind the system upgrades: “Princes Group is committed to continuously reducing our environmental impact in all facets of food production...To meet this commitment, we needed to ensure that our unified operations were running as efficiently as possible. For us, this required modernising from outdated, siloed paper- based systems to create a consistent, accessible and accurate digital thread that flows throughout the business.” A typical journey through the production process for a single product at Princes saw ingredients being brought together, cooked, sealed and palleted over a period of around two hours. This single process produced around 120 physical documents to constitute a report of the journey, which could have fallen victim to error and inaccuracy. If you consider the number of products moving through a Princes Group site and the different shifts responsible for compiling the


P 38 FEBRUARY 2023 | PROCESS & CONTROL


information, this number of documents and the opportunity for inaccuracy grows exponentially. The process also entailed a lot of repetitive, task-based, and time-consuming human input. Whilst the system worked, it did not operate with the efficiency or accuracy required and didn’t future proof the company for digital transformation.


The potential problems around a paper- based system are numerous, especially in the food manufacturing sector where the smallest variance of an ingredient quantity or the miss- labelling of a can means the loss of entire batches, resulting in the waste of production materials, energy, and time. Furthermore, without an accurate, integrated, digital system, disruptions to production or unplanned downtime can only be reported and assessed after the event and there is no guarantee that the true cause will be determined to prevent a repeat occurrence. Preventing both problems was paramount.


“Everything we do has a sustainability focus, from removing plastic from multi-packs and cartons to wide-reaching initiatives, like working closely with authorities for the sustainable fishing of tuna in the Indian ocean. Working with SolutionsPT is no different, integrating all of our machines and recipes into a single system almost entirely removes the issue of food waste when it comes to raw materials and helps ensure all production facilities are running as efficiently as possible,” said Bolton.


“Princes Group has undertaken the building blocks of what we describe as true digital transformation,” said Owen McLoughlin, Key Account Manager at SolutionsPT. “The company has achieved a complete overhaul of a previously manual process into an automated, digital environment capable of integrating into every other facet of the business. This offers short-term efficiency


gains and a quick return on investment as well as the prospect of many further digitally- enabled steps that build on the new knowledge, data and flexibility that has become available,” he continued. The starting point for Princes Group is the AVEVA software platform, a scalable solution for enterprise SCADA, visualising and contextualising operations processes across the entire organisation. This aligns with Princes’ goal of a single version of the truth, enabling secure viewing of enterprise-wide operations whether operators are in the control room, on the plant floor, or in a remote location. Combining both archived historical data and real-time process data, the AVEVA System Platform makes maintenance more efficient. It also means that adding new production lines or altering processes is simpler than ever and can be undertaken using real-life data and proven best practices.


System Platform is the ideal foundation for Princes as it allows countless software systems and services to be integrated, creating the most complete platform for individual needs.


According to McLoughlin, a fundamental inclusion on the platform was deploying AVEVA’s model-driven Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and Historian. “The model-driven MES approach digitally maintains order effectiveness and quality within plant operations. It enables the standardisation of operational processes, equipment and activities which aligns exactly with the goals of Princes when it comes to recipe management. This equates to fast gains in productivity while keeping the quality that the customer expects consistent. The Historian measures and logs the performance of every machine in the facility faster than a standard database system at a fraction of conventional storage space.”


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