Baking & Snack - June 2009 - 47

SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING

but often the analysis and material
specifications are shared no further.
Any variability in the specification
and the resulting effect on downstream operations such as processing
or packaging cannot be associated
with the original quality analysis.
Although the data are both highquality and plentiful, they are contained in separate systems, and manufacturers cannot associate the data
with other variables or compare historical results. Successful companies
require the ability to connect and
manage this data as actionable information - the key to driving sustainable manufacturing performance.
The good news is that today's
plant-wide automation systems
have removed the barriers that have
prevented true integration between
the plant floor and the rest of the enterprise. This opens manufacturers
up to new opportunities to provide
valuable information on-demand to
other areas of the company in ways
that create immediate benefit.
INTELLIGENT DECISIONS. With
a more holistic, integrated manufacturing system, companies can
more easily link the transactional
database environment of enterprise business systems, relational
data from maintenance and quality
systems, and the object-oriented,
time-series world of automation
and control systems in a single,
coherent environment. This provides context for plant-floor data,
so that people at any level in a
company can make faster and more
informed decisions. It also makes it
possible to codify the art of decision making on the factory floor,
taking away the subjective element
and driving consistency and quality into the process via the manufacturing execution system.
One area where holistic manufacturing can deliver significant
benefits is in maintenance. By
gathering and analyzing vital data
from across production facilities

BAKING & SNACK / June 2009

using condition-monitoring tools
and networked drives linked to
central controllers, engineers can
help maximize their asset availability, usage and efficiency.
Not only can operations be better tracked and audited, but ambiguity and subjectivity are removed,
mapping the processes together
and then driving manufacturing
intelligence through the connectivity of systems. This means more
production uptime, reduced the
raw materials used in producing
replacement parts and optimized
energy efficiency.
Once integrated throughout
the enterprise, plant-level data
can then become the source of
accurate information right up to
corporate-level key performance
indicators (KPIs). There are huge
benefits from doing this. Increased
control is gained as plant data is
transformed into information.
Supply-chain delivery is increased,
inventory is reduced, stock-outs
are avoided and productivity is increased, thus reducing unit costs.
UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS.
To design a holistic manufacturing system, understanding the
overall process is crucial.
This includes understanding the needs of the system
end-users and how to serve
information to the various
layers of the organization, as
well as making sure that the
information is compiled from
one core set of data.
Working in concert with
your internal team, your automation technology partner
can lend valuable insight into
the best strategies for integrated
automation solutions. If they're
truly enlightened about the value
of manufacturing information and
its role in driving business value,
it is likely they've seen situations
similar to yours and can help your
efforts run more smoothly.

REAPING THE REWARDS. Companies implementing holistic manufacturing strategies are achieving quantifiable benefits. A leading snack food manufacturer, for
example, achieved significant cost
savings in a project involving its
blended oil processing and distribution systems. The oil blends used
for its unseasoned products, are
typically made from corn, soybean
and sunflower oils.
Before the project, each oil was
put in its own storage tank connected via a site-specific piping
header to feed to the required production line. When a blend was
needed, the plant would secure it
from one of the company's several oil-processing facilities located throughout the US and have it
shipped in. Pre-blending required
double-handling of at least one
of the oils, shipping it to a second
processing site, blending and then
shipping it to the plant. As a result,
shipping-related fuel costs and
carbon emissions were higher and

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Baking & Snack - June 2009

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