All Equipment and Recipes Across 10 Lines Monitored With Single Project

Project Summary:

This Ignition project came as a result of a controls-focused project on increasing OEE across 10 packaging lines, specifically monitoring two aspects of production. The first was trending the speeds of each piece of equipment on the line to allow users to monitor the V-Curve over time. The second was maintaining equipment recipe data and tracking when changes were made.

Problem:

The first issue to address was monitoring equipment speeds, and ensuring the V-Curve of the line was being effectively controlled by the supervisory PLC as line backup and accumulation levels were changing. The line supervisory PLC had been accessed by many controls engineers over the years since installation, and therefore logic was inconsistently applied across the plant; sometimes without regard for effective packaging engineering principles.

As equipment centers were being improved with updates to their configuration, it was identified that operators were actively modifying equipment setpoints that had a direct effect on the overall speed of the equipment. Accumulation levels were occasionally decreased, or cycle rates slowed below the OEM recommendations, as the operators felt the equipment was “running too fast.”

Solution:

The system needed to monitor tags, store tag history and user data to the database, and visualize the project natively on desktop and mobile devices. Additionally, because it was not scoped within the budget of the original project, this project’s rapid development time with quick wins was used to show results to stakeholders, allowing Barry-Wehmiller Design Group to get funding quickly and continue providing value to both the E. & J. Gallo Winery and the controls team making OEE improvements.

Results:

Because this project was initially built as a direct result of the controls team’s need to visualize data, it was not clear if there would be any adoption by E. & J. After the first line logged the speed trend, and the first equipment setpoint changes started being recorded, Design Group had the immediate attention of E. & J.’s management. Although the project was in a very early Alpha phase, the management team was already eagerly logging into the system many times a day to monitor the data being presented. The project has continued to be developed with the input from the E. & J.’s management and operations teams.

Deploy Date: August 2022