Food and Beverage Case Study

Project Background

A food processing plant with limited space on its existing plant needed to find a way of increasing productivity while staying within the existing system footprint. Using modern sugar feed delivery techniques, improved product mixing, canning, and lidding machines integrated with the existing system the aim was to take the throughput from 2 tonnes/hr to 6 tonnes per/hr.

With a full order book in place and critical deadlines to meet, it was essential that disruption and downtime were kept to a minimum for the end-user and this had to be at the forefront of the approach taken.

Solution Delivered

Working alongside the mechanical engineering supplier, the control solution designed by AAC incorporated a distributed Siemens S7-1500 PLC system communicating on a ProfiNet ring alongside ET200SP remote I/O, Siemens drives and additional S7-1200 PLCs which were dedicated to filler controls.  Supporting local HMI installations consisted of several Siemens Comfort Panel HMIs placed strategically around the plant floor putting key elements of the process configuration and monitoring at the operator’s fingertips.

How AAC created value

At a supervisory level virtualised installation of Wonderware Intouch SCADA, Historian and InBatch systems have been integrated into the existing server architecture.  The Intouch SCADA consisted of two applications, a console application for alarm and event handling and an RDS application used by thin clients to present process information, diagnostics and allow for restricted access to the InBatch recipe system using the integrated ActiveX controls.

Success Story

The InBatch system provides the basis for a standard SA88 implementation of phase logic supporting the various processes involved in food production from preparation and cooking through to caustic cleaning.  Integrated InBatch controls within InTouch are used on the plant floor by operators and engineers for monitoring of the individual process steps.

Automated Batch Reports

Customisable end-of-batch reports are automatically generated and made available to plant engineers and management providing them with visibility of the batch outcome at the end of each batch run.

Minimal impact on Operations

The 300% step-change in throughput was achieved and in fact exceeded with minimal effect on operations and within the scheduled timeline, and the plant continues to operate successfully and reliably at the higher run-rate.

Contact AAC

020 8396 4440 | info@aac-ltd.com