Agrana Fruit, FR - Powder pre-mix automation
Agrana Fruit is the global market leader for fruit preparation, with 25 production sites worldwide. At their Mitry Mory site in France, they have automated their powder pre-mix preparation with an APRIL Robotics Weighing System. By automating their previously manual process, they have achieved a step-change in safety, quality, accuracy of weighing and efficiency.
Agrana Fruit is the global market leader for fruit preparation, with 25 production sites worldwide. At their Mitry Mory site in France, they have automated their powder pre-mix preparation with an APRIL Robotics Weighing System. By automating their previously manual process, they have achieved a step-change in safety, quality, accuracy of weighing and efficiency.
Background
Agrana Fruit is one of three divisions of the Agrana Group, a global Austrian food business that produces sugar, starch and fruit. Agrana Fruit produces fruit preparations for the dairy market (yoghurt with fruit), ice cream and out-of-home catering.
In 2019, the group were looking at opportunities to transform its operations. The intention was to increase levels of automation and reduce manual handling issues throughout their operations. Ingredient weighing, specifically powder weighing, was identified as a key opportunity.
Challenge
The original weighing process at Agrana Fruit was entirely manual. Two operators per shift were responsible for carrying out all powder weighing. Manual handling and RSI were two key pain points, cross-contamination, a key quality risk.
Traditional material handling auger-based systems couldn’t provide the flexibility required to automate their weighing process. Fewer than 20 ingredients could be “live”, and the weighing range was too restrictive.
Agrana needed a system capable of handling over 50 ingredients that can be dosed to an accuracy of +/-1% with a weighing range lower than 1kg.
Solution
The APRIL Weighing System was chosen following successful powder weighing trials and digital simulations. A selection of Agrana’s ingredients were tested on OAL’s test system in the UK to demonstrate weighing accuracy and cycle time. Production data was modelled against a system simulation to demonstrate the system had the capacity required for today’s and future production.
The project includes real-time ingredient traceability and tracking between Agrana’s ERP system, SAP and the APRIL Weighing System.
The system was fully built and tested at OALs HQ in Peterborough, including integration testing. On-site delivery, the system had been fully debugged, enabling a fast start-up.
Key results
The installed system weighs powders from 250g to 25kg, significantly reducing the labour required. Over 95% of manual weighments have been automated with only additions under 250g completed manually.
The target weighing accuracy for the project was +/-1%. For most powders, an accuracy of +/-0.5% has been achieved, improving quality and reducing waste.
“In terms of safety, quality and weighing accuracy, the APRIL cell fully delivers against our expectations. I would say that the relationship with OAL has been good to excellent. We’ve had a lot to learn about automation and robotics, and OAL has been supportive every step of the way.”
If you’re looking for a precise and automated process for powder weighing, contact us today!
At a glance
Customer since: 2020
Challenge
Automate complex powder weighing process (50+ ingredients)
Reduce the risk of manual handling and injuries
Eliminate cross-contamination
Solution
APRIL Robotics Weighing System with 120 ASC locations
Integration with SAP ERP for real-time ingredient traceability and usage
Co-development and ongoing system support
Results
Average dosing accuracy better than target +/-1%
Vertical start-up following pre build and FAT at OAL, UK
Plan to roll out robotic weighing to other manufacturing sites
SCADA replacement improves data visibility at leading UK bakeries
OAL has replaced an existing SCADA and recipe tracking system across 6 bakery sites improving resilience and providing the tools and date visibility to grow and improve operational efficiency.
OAL has replaced an existing SCADA and recipe tracking system across six bakery sites improving resilience and providing the tools and date visibility to grow and improve operational efficiency.
Customer
One of the UK’s largest vertically integrated baking and flour milling businesses with over five bakeries in the UK.
Challenge
The bakeries were undergoing reinvestment of which a key requirement was to improve operational performance through better control, reporting and visibility of; scheduling, recipe control, product tracking, set points, adherence to plan, yield, waste and water absorption.
The new SCADA system needed to be robust and require minimal levels of maintenance to ensure a low cost of ownership.
The existing project management information system (PMIS) that was used across a number of sites to offer basic SCADA functionality required a complete overhaul, the existing system was over 30 years old.
Solution
Following a review of suppliers, OAL was chosen to replace the old SCADA system and implement their proven bakery product tracking system because of our bakery controls experience.
As part of the enabling works, the bakeries installed a Modicon PLC on each plant. This plc is used to capture data from the various areas of the plant and store in a central location.
OAL’s SCADA system uses these as the primary source to capture data and control hardware on the plant. In addition data is exchanged directly with packaging lines via CompactLogix PLC’s and directly with Mixers via existing Modicon PLC’s.
Legacy devices are connected to the new Ethernet infrastructure. This gives the bakery the opportunity to continue upgrading the rest of their equipment to Ethernet devices in the future, whilst maintaining communication with existing equipment.
The OAL solution included the following highlights to ensure long term operational success and a robust system was delivered on time as part of a phased roll-out to bakery sites:
Paperless
The new system enables paperless recording and reporting of ingredient usage, plant utilisation, waste and yield whilst also providing maintenance/engineering functionality. Significantly the system utilises the newly designed reporting software to improve engagement and visibility of plant data. The new screens pictured look very different to the old screens and uses clever traffic light systems to highlight intolerance's.
The new screens provide a much greater resolution in tracking, and as such it is much easier to view what is going through the plant at a glance. This is due to the re-design of the screens and the use of colour whilst still remaining familiar with the old system.
Reports are web based so that they can be accessed anywhere within the company's Intranet. All sites can view other sites performances and the reports are updated directly from SCADA. This allows for effective real time comparisons across the country without direct contact.
Virtualised SCADA
The OAL solution has utilised a virtualised SCADA system over the more traditionally server installed systems seen in food manufacturers. A key benefit of virtualisation is the ability to reduce downtime because of the real time backup of data. Furthermore virtualised systems require less maintenance and have a lower cost of ownership. Combining the virtualised SCADA with Terminal Services based clients results in an extremely robust infrastructure.
Terminal services based Thin clients reside predominantly on the back of the plant monitors. They provide a remote desktop connection onto the SCADA. The main advantage of this is that a client is not tied to one location, and are interchangeable. If a client breaks it can be simply removed and replaced with a spare.
Another advantage is a saving in cost, not only in hardware, but in software as well. Due to the SCADA software being server side, licensing costs are reduced. In traditional SCADA architecture, each machine would need a software license. With the new client architecture a license is needed for each server (2 in this case), and then special ‘client’ licenses for each thin client. The thin client licenses are significantly cheaper than standard licenses, reducing cost.
Security is also improved as the servers are the single point of contact to the outside world. This means that only the servers need protecting.
Result
The highly technical project was completed to schedule and the bakeries were delighted with the new visibility of the tracking system. Long term trending and intelligence will allow the bakeries to instil best practices across the group and secure operational improvements. Over the last 12 months sites have already begun to see the benefits that include:
● Reduction in yield losses due to enhanced visibility of the process parameters.
● Reduced raw material usage across sites.
● Increase capacity because of improved scheduling.
Premier Foods, UK - ERP & SCADA automation lead to major throughput increases
Fully integrated ERP and plant visualisations and reporting deliver an impressive 26% improvement in average throughputs at Premier Foods Ashford as five factories are combined into one.
Fully integrated ERP and plant visualisations and reporting deliver an impressive 26% improvement in average throughputs at Premier Foods Ashford as five factories are combined into one.
Customer
Premier Foods are one of the country’s largest food producers. The business supplies some of the leading household branded products from a portfolio of “Power Brands” including Bisto, Hovis, Sharwood’s. Birds, Ambrosia, Bachelor’s, Oxo, Mr Kipling and Loyd Grossman.
Challenge
The Premier Foods factory at Ashford was expanded to allow the reconciliation of a number of sites into one and it now produces mainly dried products. With the size and scale of the investment, an advanced control system was required to allow the site to effectively manage the production, provide quality control and link to the sites ERP systems, providing a common scheduling and stock tracking reconciliation system. Over 30 shop floor PCs were required to be controlled. The success criteria for the project were:
Yearly production savings
Increased productivity
Fewer customer complaints
Improved yield
Solution
OAL was appointed lead controls supplier and successfully implemented a state-of-the-art automated controls system at the redeveloped site. Site purchased equipment, and OAL worked with these suppliers to provide the appropriate control panel, software and electrical installation.
“OAL used their advanced software to help us identify plant improvement opportunities on third-party equipment. OAL then implemented these improvements using their process /automation teams. The results were very impressive with average throughputs gains of 26%!”
Links were set up to the site ERP system to automatically receive recipes and production plans which were displayed on the shop floor. Upon completion of batches, the finished product batch information and quality checks were automatically booked into the ERP system.
Advanced reporting allowed a detailed breakdown of the time taken to perform process steps allowing the site to identify opportunities to speed up the plant easily. OAL then helped the site to increase capacity using their process and automation skills to improve third-party equipment that previously was not performing to specification.
Results
Premier Foods have successfully built a state-of-the-art facility at the Ashford site. OAL has supported Premier Foods to achieve:
38% less reject batches
63% reduction of labour cost per tonne of ingredients
New plant throughput increase by 26%.
They continue to use OAL as a key supplier of engineering expertise and 24-hour support at the site.