Getting a helping hand to meet challenges

24 January 2020

The Absolut Company has taken the first step towards its goal of increase manufacturing efficiency and flexibility across all of its production sites.

A collaboration between Siemens Digital Industries Software and The Absolut Company has seen this producer of spirits for global distribution conducting a pilot project to test Siemens Opcenter Execution Process (formerly known as SIMATIC IT Unified Architecture Process Industries) in one of its three factories.

This pilot project is the first step of what is hoped will be an enterprise-wide roll-out across all of The Absolut Company’s factories in a bid to enable it to better meet its current and future challenges in beverage market – including an increasing demand for high quality and variety in products and production as well helping to counter the high cost pressures of the global food and beverage market.

“The Absolut Company always strives to have best-in-class manufacturing where Industry 4.0 will be a key enabler to deliver on future consumer demands. We are happy to have Siemens Digital Industries Software as a key partner on this journey,” said Anna Schreil, VP operations at The Absolut Company.

Opcenter Execution Process forms part of the Siemens Digital Enterprise Suite, Manufacturing Execution System (MES) solution for the consumer-packaged goods and food and beverage industries. It has been developed to cover the entire value chain – from reception of incoming material to distribution of produced goods – including quality control, product planning and scheduling as well as reporting, trends and advanced analysis. The Absolute Company is hoping that the Siemens Opcenter Execution Process will help it increase traceability, manage orders more efficiently and monitor production in real time.

Using Siemens Opcentre Execution Process as a manufacturing operations management (MOM) platform will help enable seamless integration with scheduling, quality and manufacturing intelligence, which delivers interactive dashboards for analysis of production data when it comes to new product development and introduction. The solution is said to enable the transformation of recipes from ‘generic’ specifications to detailed ‘master’ instructions, ready for order scheduling and execution.

Commenting on the solution, Greg Gorbach, vice president at ARC Advisory Group, said: “To innovate and transform their business industrial companies need to optimise production operations while interacting with engineering, automation and enterprise systems. Siemens Opcentre provides the needed functionality and interoperability in a unified offering.”

Staying ahead

“Companies across the consumer products industry are facing a variety of challenges, including increased regulations, a need for global manufacturing to meet local demands, and competitive pressures that can result in reduced margins,” explained Mats Friberg, vice president & managing director for Nordic Operations at Siemens Digital Industries Software. “The Absolut Company has recognised that the key to staying ahead in this changing industry is through digitalisation.”

Commenting on integrating the Opcenter Execution solution, Jose Luis Alejandro of the Digital Factory Division at Siemens Digital Industries Software said: “Integration will require close collaboration between The Absolute Company experts, business process specialists, manufacturing engineers and project managers, with Siemens Industry Software solution architects and the project manager.

“The combined focus of this team will be to deliver an out of the box solution that meets the needs of the customer and provides a fast return-on-investment. The integration timeframe for this project is just seven months and this will be made possible thanks to the Advantedge, Opcenter Connect MIO and service consultants.”

Numerous benefits

When installation of the Opcenter Execution solution is complete the benefits for control engineers at the plant will be numerous, according to Alejandro. “Benefits will include greater flexibility of variable product manufacturing, improved traceability, a responsive user interface for use with mobile devices and data availability for leveraging quality/process optimisation,” he said. “Best of all will be the potential for future integration of Siemens Industry Software’s Xcelerator platform components.”

In conclusion, offering some advice to other food and beverage manufacturers looking to increase product traceability and production efficiencies, Alejandro said: “Be prepared, create a clear and concise set of requirements, taking into account your future enterprise architecture and solutions capabilities, and take a process-based approach. In order to maximise return on investment a value driven perspective is needed as this will provide tangible benefits by and for your management and key employees, which will help provide them with the drive to truly transform the business.”