SPOTLIGHT u DIGITAL MANUFACTURING
Ice cream makes chewy encounter with digital manufacturing
S
ince its launch in 1981, Lotte’s Yukimi Daifuku has been loved by people of all ages as a popular Japanese household
favourite – vanilla ice cream balls wrapped in soft, chewy mochi rice cake. But to achieve the deceptively simple goal of consistent texture, quality and taste is actually more difficult than most people would have thought. To solve this challenge, Lotte has introduced Mitsubishi Electric’s e-F@ctory to the production of Yukimi Daifuku. “Before introducing e-F@ctory, there was an issue of inconsistency in the rice cake quality,” says Hiroshi Sugimoto, Manager of the Facilities Department, Urawa Plant, LOTTE Co. Ltd. “When wrapping the ice cream, the hardness of the rice cake used to vary depending on the temperature and water content. Some operations were dependent on people, and losses arose out of the need to finely adjust the machine parameters. “The e-F@ctory system allows us to conduct
improvement activities such as enhancing the operating rate, stabilising quality, and optimising staffing for production activities. The extendibility of the system, depending on what we want to do, was also appealing.” At each of the Yukimi Daifuku production lines the state of the product and the operating status of the machines is collected by PLCs installed in each process. Vast amounts of data, such as vibration data from the rice cake hopper to data from the conveying inverters, is collected. This can be understood in real-time not only through the overall SCADA monitoring system, which is
10 April 2022 Irish Manufacturing
installed in the control room, but also through on- site computer displays. “By introducing this system, data became centralised, making it possible to view and investigate conditions whenever we want,” explains Hiroshi Akimoto, Section Manager of Facilities Department. “Because the data volume is extremely high, having all the data centralised in one place has a positive effect. One big benefit is that we can now gather and analyse data and conduct data diagnostics using a real-time data analyser. This system not only helps us stabilise the state of the rice cakes used for the Yukimi Daifuku, but also promotes improvement activities within the plant.” Mr Akimoto continues: “Another benefit is the adjustment of the blending ratio of rice cake and ice cream. This was usually done by experienced operators, who monitored the state of the rice cakes as they come out of the wrapping machine by kneading them with their fingers. We thought it would be great if we could automate this process, and by capturing signs of any poor quality in the wrapped rice cakes beforehand, we can eliminate problems. That was our ultimate goal.” Takayuki Manako, Executive Director and Plant Manager of Urawa Plant, LOTTE Co. Ltd, comments: “Ice cream is a cold material. This is combined with rice cake, which is warm when it is made, and this technical aspect in a good balance is what makes Yukimi Daifuku a complex product. The temperature in the manufacturing room also varies all year round. We strive to maintain consistent conditions, but at the same time, we
try to reliably create even better conditions. We introduced the e-F@ctory manufacturing concept with the expectation of realising this in the future.”
“In the course of daily production, machines do not operate in the same condition every day. Previously experienced staff members checked and adjusted the settings of the machines,” Mr Manako explains, “but with e-F@ctory we can visualise the condition of machines and the machines themselves can issue instructions to make adjustments.
“Another thing is that maintenance and failures
are unavoidable with machines. We expect that these can also be better managed by using e-F@ ctory’s symptom management features.” Mr Manako says while the use of IoT has only just been introduced to the production of Yukimi Daifuku, the Urawa Plant has many other lines making chocolates and ice creams. “We aim to horizontally deploy this system and construct a smart plant in which ‘symptom management’ and ‘operating rate improvement’ are implemented on numerous lines. Stable plant operation and manpower savings will eventually make a major contribution in terms of costs and so on. If we consider LOTTE as a whole, our goal is to further evolve this technology and extend it to other plants.”
Mitsubishi Electric
https://ie.mitsubishielectric.com/fa
www.irish-manufacturing.com
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