Automation penetration

Cost savings: a practical matter

Today's processors are at their most practical where cost savings is concerned.

Today's automation helps control waste, ingredient usage, and energy utilization and enables real-time inventory tracking. System-wide monitoring and control is possible with Ethernet LANs.

Communications networking

At a major milk-drying factory in Ontario, systems provided by Tetra Pak (www.tetrapakprocessing.com) allow control of process valves, temperature and other processing variables through a DeviceNet network. DeviceNet, a simple and low-cost communications standard for connecting industrial devices, “allows better control of the processes and allows quick modifications and expansions during the life-cycle of the factory," says Axel Andersson, manager of automation engineering for Tetra Pak, based in Vernon Hills, Ill.

"Equipment like valves and pumps can be controlled," says Andersson. "You can monitor the strokes of pumps. You can also use the systems for predictive maintenance."

While control of the processes is the main consideration, an increasingly important side-benefit is energy savings, a huge consideration in today's world business climate. Variable frequency drives, for example, are programmed to keep energy use to a minimum without sacrificing optimum processing.

Such oversight control can help reduce other types of waste as well. Jean Pierre Berlan, sales director for the Tetra Pak processing division, notes that careful monitoring of milk flow with turbidity meters following the cleaning cycle in a milk operation can deliver significant savings. "The turbidity meter lets you know where the mix [of water with milk] begins and ends so that you can at the same time secure the best product quality and optimize product losses, says Berlan.

"The dairy industry still is very conservative and the vast majority of the dairy facilities still use a timer when they flush their pipes. They are not optimizing the product recovery," continues Berlan. "The evolution of sensors is enabling us to optimize a factory far better than we could 10 to 15 years ago."A Florida citrus processing plant demonstrates how enterprise resource planning (ERP) can be effected using PLC-networked systems over an Ethernet local-area network (LAN). The end result is considerable inventory reduction.

"You can manage your business from a central control station," explains Charles Matthews at Florida's Natural Growers in Lake Wales, Fla. Florida's Natural upgraded its processing system several years ago. "And we have been constantly adding to it since," says Matthews. The ERP system is gathering critical and timely plant information that assists with planning, ordering and cost control.

"In the southern U.S., we commissioned this year a complete dairy plant where the process control is connected to the ERP system," says Tetra Pak's Berlan. "This type of set-up allows for a real-time update of production, facilitating inventory management for both raw materials and finished goods."

"To plan as accurately as possible, you need accurate information," adds Andersson.

The systems can monitor the entry of ingredients onto the process lines and provide immediate inventory and usage updates. "The ERP system will deduct ingredient taken from inventory," notes Berlan. "If you have accurate information exchange, you don't need as large a threshold of stock. Yes, you can get the information in other ways, but that is an open door to human error."