Food and Beverage Manufacturer Integrates Islands of Automation with Connext™ Platform

by | Jun 27, 2023 | Control & Safety Systems, Digital Transformation, Discrete Automation, Food & Beverage, Industrial IoT

Andrea Di Talia

Andrea Di Talia

EMEA Marketing Program Manager, Discrete Automation

Connecting highly disparate machines that exist in separate operating entities in a manufacturing plant could save many companies substantial time and money, but pressing production schedules and the status quo of existing procedures often hold them back.

A large food and beverage production facility in Italy was faced with these “islands of automation,” with 32 machines that were all essential to the process and that all depended on each other’s output, but that all operated independently on a manually based production line. The production manager received paper-based production orders and gave instructions to the machine operators from those orders. Of course, the system was personnel-intensive and fraught with the potential for human error. The company determined it needed to install a new manufacturing execution system (MES) and turned to its system integrator, Technologies for Automation (TFA).

The MES required software that could connect all of the disparate machines running on individual PLCs. The company executives were anxious for the system to be up and running as quickly as possible. TFA selected the Connext™ platform from Emerson, an OPC UA server that supports a large number of industry protocols.

The openness of the Connext platform made it possible to connect the MES system with the 32 machines on the production line in a simple and transparent way. To ensure virtually continuous operation, Connext was used in a redundant configuration.

The Connext platform is not just an OPC UA server, but it also offers a range of capabilities such as historian and data logger functionality. These provide local back-up of all the data that is exchanged between the MES system and the Connext solution. As a result, the food processing company is able to manage the collection of data to be shared with the MES platform continuously and without interruptions. Due to the inherent functionality of the Connext platform and the simplicity of the solution, the implementation was efficient with minimal downtime. The advanced integration capabilities of the Connext solution and the simplicity of deployment and implementation were decisive factors in its selection for the project.

Read this case study in full here.

And learn more about this simple approach to connecting disparate systems here.

 

Popular Posts

Comments

Follow Us

We invite you to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube to stay up to date on the latest news, events and innovations that will help you face and solve your toughest challenges.

Do you want to reuse or translate content?

Just post a link to the entry and send us a quick note so we can share your work. Thank you very much.

Our Global Community

Emerson Exchange 365

The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the authors. Content published here is not read or approved by Emerson before it is posted and does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Emerson.

PHP Code Snippets Powered By : XYZScripts.com