FEATURE Smart factories and AI
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Food producer optimises effi ciency with SCADA
By Steve Ward, Director Application Engineering EMEA at Emerson B
ecoming ‘digital’ allows new production plants to immediately benefi t from implementing advanced automation software and technologies for long-term operational excellence. This includes modern supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) solutions that can integrate all parts of production, equipment and systems, and collect and analyse key performance data. That data can then be used to identify issues, support improved decision making and make improvements that drive increased availability, throughput and overall equipment eff ectiveness (OEE). A good example can be found at FEI Foods in South Wales. This highly- innovative company is Europe’s largest producer of ready-to-eat rice and grain pouches, and has implemented an Emerson SCADA solution for plant monitoring and control, to optimise throughput and effi ciency at its new processing and packaging facility in Llantrisant. Its existing production facilities had been operating at near capacity for several years, but the new plant provided the perfect opportunity to increase throughput by digitally transforming the company’s operational technology and practices. A key focus was improving data access and transfer, to support inventory management and for packaging production and printing. At the existing facilities, all inventory control declarations and the sending of production information to printers for packaging and labelling were performed manually. FEI Foods wanted to fully automate this process to increase effi ciency and eliminate human error. Another requirement was to provide operators and executives with full visibility of the production process and OEE and access to key operational data. Meeting these aims required an integrated SCADA solution to interconnect all the new automation equipment over the
26 November 2023 | Automation
plant’s data communications network. The solution also needed to interface with FEI Foods’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) and inventory control systems, as well as printing, labelling and applicators, to enable automatic production declarations to be performed at the end of each batch. Automation and electrical design company PLATCON was chosen as system integrator, and selected Emerson’s
Movicon.NExT SCADA platform to meet the project’s stringent requirements. The SCADA software connects to programmable logic controllers that control the diff erent production processes, collects process information from the automation equipment and stores it in SQL and ORACLE databases. It also communicates with the inkjet and labelling equipment to provide updated information dynamically during production. To eliminate the ineffi ciency and inconvenience of a manual inventory system, Emerson and PLATCON developed a web services interface to allow the
Movicon.NExT platform to communicate with the inventory control system. This then automated production declarations to
the ERP system at the end of every batch. The new system also enabled the automatic transfer of production information to inkjet printers, case and pallet labellers and barcode scanners. This data, needed for batch numbers and best-before dates, was previously transferred manually. The ‘
Movicon.NExT’ solution is connected to the plant’s data network, and six monitors in the control room give operators full process visibility. Ten web clients provide secure remote access for accredited operators. All standalone automation systems have been integrated, enabling communication with each other via Ethernet and providing complete visibility of the process and product data tracking. The Movicon Pro.Lean module connects up to 20 items of equipment, collecting and analysing key performance data to provide process improvement insights, reduce equipment failures and improve OEE.
The
Movicon.NExT platform proved a very powerful and easy to use development tool for PLATCON, helping design engineers to complete the project faster and more easily.
automationmagazine.co.uk
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