Case Study: Process Improvement Unilever Purfleet
Blue Cedar | This project involved inserting a new manufacturing line into an existing production environment. We worked directly for Unilever's own manufacturing improvement projects department.
As with the majority of projects, the work was kicked off with a project meeting, gathering together relevant stakeholders, in this case including the project management team, ourselves and senior members of the operational team that would ultimately run and maintain the new line. This meeting scoped out the development path for the required manuals and included agreement of the timescales required for delivery of every aspect of the project.
When we arrived on site some of the new equipment was already installed, some in the process of commissioning and some in the installation phase. It is particularly true where new systems are being integrated into an existing environment that the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) manual will need to be rewritten, at least in part, to cater for the specific application as it is integrated into the process. This was never truer than with this project where operation of the new lines needed to be adapted on site to fit in with the existing SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems.
This integration also required work within an ongoing food production environment, utilising GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) both in a practical sense, while on site, as well as within the process manuals delivered at the conclusion of the project.
Flexibility as far as we are concerned means doing what needs to be done wherever and whenever it's needed. In this case that involved some very late nights, particularly during the system testing, where invaluable process experience was gained. This ensures that the documentation accounted for the handling of every foreseeable practical eventuality.
The final output from us for this project was a practical operator manual for the process and a series of PowerPoint presentations, which were then utilised in a training course for the operations team. Unilever continue to use the training materials to train new operators as they commence working on the new line.
"The ATS/Blue Cedar team integrated very well with the factory crews, getting immediately involved to understand our complex operation. They did this quickly and developed a user friendly training manual of good quality for our operators"
Nicholas Nixon, Process and Packaging Project Manager
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ATS delivers a Simatic IT MES system to a large Company in the Netherlands that produces Coffee, Cocoa Cappuccino, Milk/Whiteners, Teas and a varied range of hot and cold drinks.
Partners included, this company has over 225,000 vending machines and 4,000 employees, a real Leader in many Western European countries.
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ATS is the world leading Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) specialist with global delivery capabilities. ATS is working closely with world-class manufacturers (including Food and Beverage).
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Carlsberg’s catchphrase, 'Probably the world’s best beer', is a famous, modest, tongue-in-cheek understatement from this Danish beer company. Can we say the same about its manufacturing execution system (MES) implementation? Will it probably be the world’s best MES?
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Introduction of Lean Manufacturing & Six Sigma Methodologies, Project & Opportunities allocation. The Del monte company is one of the world leading companies in the production of fresh fruit, fruit juice and fruit cans based on mainly tropical fruits.
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Carlsberg Breweries, headquartered in Copenhagen Denmark initiated a supply chain management improvement process with a best practice program in 2006.
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Within the printing industry this ink dispensing system is used to mix various colour pastes composed of 14 to 22 mix pastes. The ink is used to print packaging.
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A pilot project for a company producing animal food since 1987 in all leading pet food categories.
Expertise in the field of wet food in recent years expanded to include dry food, snacks and cakes.
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Schweppes has chosen the ATS Simatic IT MES Filling and Packaging Solution. This solution was first developed in close co-operation with Siemens Genoa for Carlsberg and is now available to the general filling and packaging market as an “out of the box” solution.
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Carlsberg Breweries, headquartered in Copenhagen Denmark initiated a supply chain management improvement process with a best practice program in 2006.
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Stefan Thone is enthusiastic and leads us immediately to the production lines at Hengstenberg in Frizlar, to show us their manufacturing execution system. We are standing between the two canning lines looking at a large screen presenting facts and figures about today’s production.
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From scrubbing, to cutting, to frying, to adding ingredients, to weighing, to packing in bags and then palletising, these processes are a marvel of engineering and control.
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In this application a standard SCADA application has been replaced by an ATS developed application using Visual Basic and Access. Operators can change recipes from a PC based operator interface to produce the exact volume of the end product with the correct component dosing.
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One of ATS’s first applications. Very high speed liquid packaging machines initially implemented only with PLC control and later complemented with HMI and
SCADA.
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For a manufacturer of flexible packaging machines mainly used in the food industry, ATS Software Development assisted with the development of a high speed embedded control system written in C.
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Milk, cheese and packaging: ATS has a long history in the dairy industry.
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Blue Cedar | This project involved inserting a new manufacturing line into an existing production environment. We worked directly for Unilever's own manufacturing improvement projects department.
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Blue Cedar | Working with a system integrator, this project was ultimately for a major beverage manufacturer building a brand new plant at a small town called Ballina in the Irish Republic.
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A Sauerkraut Production Company wanted to improve efficiency and productivity and at the same time lower operation costs.
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The project included the design, installation and implementation of a data-collection and traceability system for the production of cheeses.
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Working for a major brewery in the Netherlands has brought us into many aspects of the brewing industry. Suppliers of brewing equipment such as Krohne in Germany also use our communication products widely. Our projects have included water treatment, brew houses, bottling lines and packaging systems.
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