Plant Automation Strategies
23 August 2007 14:53
Food safety, flexibility and profitability drive the evolution.
The need for automated solutions has become a basic requirement for the modern food industry, and there are a few very clear trends which food producers must consider as key strategic issues are discussed.
Firstly, a very strong trend worldwide is the demand for traceability and security in the automation solutions. In recent years food alarms have made the consumers more and more concerned with food safety. This has lead to a demand for food safety to be built into the systems, continuously developed and improved.
Tetra PlantMaster™ is the innovative top-of-the-line automation and control solution. Increasingly larger volumes are produced by fewer people. Therefore, it is essential to be able to trust the automation systems that run and control the plants.
"Tracking and traceability ensures reliability and efficiency in production – less deviations, better control at critical control points, fewer claims and recalls as well as better food safety, increased plant security and compliance with new global food regulations", says Mikael Samuelsson, manager of plant automation, Tetra Pak Processing Systems. "This is what traceability is all about – to collect relevant information, make it visible and use it to improve and optimise the operational processes in a food processing plant."
Secondly, the demands for greater flexibility have increased. As more new products and more new variations of products are requested from the consumers, better food quality is demanded, more and quicker changeovers are required.
The time to introduce new products, new tastes or new ingredients has shortened. The food producers want to be able to quickly, easily and at a reasonable cost adapt the production to new conditions and changed prerequisites. Thus, the automation solution needs to be very flexible, streamline asset utilisation while increasing throughput.
Finally, there is a global trend for higher efficiency, particularly for bulk products. The hard pressure on food producers today, from brand owners and retailers, makes it vital to lower operating costs and increase productivity. This also puts new demands on the automation system, in regard to reliability, efficiency and cost-efficient production management.
Tetra PlantMaster is the innovative top-of-the line automation and control solution for plant applications from Tetra Pak Processing Systems. It is a modular plant automation solution based on open industry standards that break through all the barriers to good communication within a food processing plant. It offers connections to administrative systems, advanced reporting as well as complete traceability from raw material to packaged goods.
As a world leading company in food processing and packaging, Tetra Pak's motto 'protects what's good'™ reflects the philosophy upon which we conduct our business in order to make food safe and available, everywhere.
Operating in more than 165 markets with over 20,000 employees, Tetra Pak believes in responsible industry leadership, creating profitable growth in harmony with good corporate citizenship and a sustainable approach to business.
We work closely with our suppliers and customers on preferred processing and packaging solutions to provide convenient, innovative and environmentally sound products to millions of people worldwide.
For more information on this company:
Tetra Pak Processing Systems - Total Production Solutions for the Food Manufacturing Industry
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