Food producer saves 1 million euros annually with improvement projects
Food producer saves 1 million euros annually with improvement projects
The HAI software plays a crucial role in this process
Take a look in your kitchen cupboard or refrigerator. Chances are that some of these goodies have been made with the mostly natural ingredients of the American multinational we are talking about here. This food manufacturer is one of the largest producers of food ingredients in the world. One of their largest production sites is in The Netherlands. They recently started using the HAI software to gain more insight into the details of their production processes in order to support their improvement projects.
René Danker is consultant at HAI. He has supported this company in setting up and using the HAI software. And with success, as it turns out. The first results are already very promising.
René Danker, consultant at HAI: “With the HAI dashboards I help operators and technologists to make smart use of plant and quality data. It motivates me enormously to see that they achieve such great results so quickly, .”
Improvement projects
The project engineering manager took the initiative to introduce the HAI software. He explains how their company is heavily committed to improvement projects in all sorts of ways. “But how could we determine which projects we should give the highest priority?” That question came up every time. After all, to prioritize the projects we needed data. Detailed data that we could also use for analysis. For example, data about the exact duration and the processing conditions of certain process steps. “If these deviate too much, then we know we have to dig deeper into this. After all, this has a direct impact on the cost price and the delivery reliability.”
Plant data and data from SAP
Then, one of his engineers joins. He is involved in implementing improvement projects for the production of liquid ingredients in particular. He therefore makes intensive use of the data from HAI. The HAI software collects data from the process control system and SAP. In the HAI database they track a lot of data for each production batch: the temperatures, pressures, start-stop times, valve positions, dwell times, quantities, etc. From SAP (the business administration) HAI collects information on process orders, product composition, and quality measurements. Together, this provides a good picture of how successful each batch is.
Diversity in recipes and process steps
In the production of liquid ingredients, they process raw raw materials into a liquid with the desired flavor.
The liquids are made in a series of different process steps.The liquid is then mixed with other substances to produce the desired final product.
It is important to monitor these processes closely in order to subsequently improve and optimize.
The great diversity in recipes and process steps makes it a challenging game.
Software pays off quickly
The HAI software has already paid for itself in a short time. The engineer gives a few examples:
First, the production of the precious ingredient X. Not an easy production process. Especially in the enzymatic process step there are too often varying process conditions resulting in varying yields. From a comparison of the trend of different batches, correlations were quickly found between the output on the one hand and the critical process parameters on the other. Now operators know how to monitor these process conditions to ensure maximum yield for this product.
Another example: the yield of a batch turns out to be much lower than expected. Examination of the data reveals that a process step was skipped. It turned out that the operator on duty had made a mistake: he thought the process had already completed one step and therefore started the next step.
Also, a vacuum pump had recently broken down. When the new vacuum pump also broke down after three weeks, it was time to start an investigation. It soon became clear that the condenser could not completely capture volatile components under certain conditions. This allowed material to get into the pump resulting in extremely rapid wear. For a pump worth more than 20,000 euros, it’s important to prevent recurrence.
About the donkey and the stone
One of the benefits of the HAI software is that it makes it much easier to find causes of abnormalities or problems in your production process. Once you have identified the cause, you can figure out how to prevent the same mistake in the future. The story of the donkey and the stone, so to speak.
Preventing the repetition of these mistakes alone saves a lot of money on an annual basis.
A water test is planned for the coming weekend to find out why the the temperature rises to 60°C, while it is set at 50°C?
“On Monday it’s a matter of trending the temperature and the steam pressure together with some control valve positions. Then we will soon get an idea why this happens.”
Covid-19
Safety, quality and delivery reliability are important priorities for the plant in the Netherlands. Many food manufacturers depend on its critical raw materials. So it is of utmost importance to secure the continuity of production. They have therefore taken strict measures to prevent employees from being infected with Covid-19. Only people who are directly responisble for running the plant, are allowed on site. Furthermore, an exception is made for employees to be on-site if safety, quality or delivery reliability are at stake.
And so the engineer carries out his improvement projects mainly from his study at home. The fact that he now has all the factory data at his disposal is extra convenient. “I now have much more information at my disposal from my desk at home than I used to have from my workplace in the factory,” he jokes.
Get inspired
Interested in more best practices of smart use of factory data?
Get inspired by the successes of others when it comes to real-time monitoring of quality and production data, OEE, positive release, golden batch, CIP-cleaning, operator support, factory data anaytics, in-line measurements, factory dashboards… and much more.
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