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Parmalat |

Executive Summary

Parmalat is a national dairy company with a long and fruitful history in Australia. From their beginnings as Pauls milk factory on the banks of the Brisbane river in the 1930s the operation has gone from strength to strength and is currently part of a global dairy operation providing dairy products all over the world. The comprehensive metering and monitoring package provided by Buildings Evolved is in line with the brands commitment to investing in innovation strategies to facilitate its expansion, to set the benchmark for the dairy industry locally and its increasing role in export markets, into Asia and beyond.

Out Performers Pty Ltd were the contracted agents for which Buildings Evolved were commissioned to deliver insights and visibility as to how resources are being consumed in order to bring efficiencies and consequent savings into their operations. The approach involved the installation of multiple sensors around the facility to better understand consumption in relation to plant and equipment performance and efficiency for their Lidcombe manufacturing plant with the capability to expand to 8 facilities nationwide.

 

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pamalat-case-study

Location: Lidcombe, NSW Australia

Industry: Milk Producers

www.parmalat.com.au

Business Drivers

Industry

Whilst there has been growth in dairy product sales across Australia, according to a Dairy Australia report there exists a deep and consistent trough in international markets. Coupled with the bruising margins from wholesalers, companies like Parmalat a pushed to find innovative ways to streamline their operations.

Design

Input sensors give operational insights into electricity and gas; while output sensors include steam and compressed air flow rates as well as temperatures of critical systems including chillers, boilers and pasteurizers. Interval data over resource consumption at the operational level is conveyed to users through a web-based platform (Switch Platform) offering specific reporting capabilities and strategic operations high-level information for decision making processes predicating efficiency programs.

Implementation

The project involved installing a string of sensors around the facility. All Parmalat manufacturing facilities have as standard equipment a Citect 7.2 SCADA system and Socomec brand electricity meters, pulse aggregators and analogue input devices. The data driven strategy involves connecting the new metering points to the existing SCADA system.

Outcomes

  • The project will deliver automated meter and sensor data collection, collected by the BMS and resultant data simultaneously stored on site and sent to the remote Switch platform
  • delivers on
  • Deliver an intuitive and easy to comprehend user interface (UI) for analysis, data entry, alerts and reports via a web-based HTML5 (Switch) platform
  • Improve visibility of sustainability metrics to improve operational efficiency
  • Provide reporting tools specifically for sustainability reporting or internal review requirements.
  • Detailed data from SCADA across all metrics captured by and sent to the platform
  • Capacity to expand to other facilities for cross-portfolio benchmarking

Business Drivers

Industry

Whilst there has been growth in dairy product sales across Australia, according to a Dairy Australia report there exists a deep and consistent trough in international markets. Coupled with the bruising margins from wholesalers, companies like Parmalat a pushed to find innovative ways to streamline their operations.

Design

Input sensors give operational insights into electricity and gas; while output sensors include steam and compressed air flow rates as well as temperatures of critical systems including chillers, boilers and pasteurizers. Interval data over resource consumption at the operational level is conveyed to users through a web-based platform (Switch Platform) offering specific reporting capabilities and strategic operations high-level information for decision making processes predicating efficiency programs.

Implementation

The project involved installing a string of sensors around the facility. All Parmalat manufacturing facilities have as standard equipment a Citect 7.2 SCADA system and Socomec brand electricity meters, pulse aggregators and analogue input devices. The data driven strategy involves connecting the new metering points to the existing SCADA system.

Outcomes

  • The project will deliver automated meter and sensor data collection, collected by the BMS and resultant data simultaneously stored on site and sent to the remote Switch platform
  • delivers on
  • Deliver an intuitive and easy to comprehend user interface (UI) for analysis, data entry, alerts and reports via a web-based HTML5 (Switch) platform
  • Improve visibility of sustainability metrics to improve operational efficiency
  • Provide reporting tools specifically for sustainability reporting or internal review requirements.
  • Detailed data from SCADA across all metrics captured by and sent to the platform
  • Capacity to expand to other facilities for cross-portfolio benchmarking

Building Shared Values

Consultation in quality technological systems - Identify value, ethos and culture necessary to drive efficiency and discover innovations

Requirements

The overarching requirement of the metering and monitoring package is to facilitate a better understanding of where energy is being consumed, and what the output of various services is in order to determine plant efficiency.

  • Design and procurement of specifications, procedures through to consultation and management of contractors and implementation
  • Installation of a range of electrical, gas flow and water flow meters
  • New meters will be interfaced to the existing SCADA system
  • Commissioning data feeds Out Performers EMS web-based monitoring platform (Switch Platform)

Technical Overview

  • There are 5x network ports across different buildings that will form the basis of each RTU bus loop
  • On each loop will be a series of Socomec E43 or ECi3 model electricity meters and pulse/analogue input units (the client prefers to use Socomec as it is ubiquitous throughout the company)
  • There are to be 4 temperature probes interfaced to existing 4-20ma inputs on the SCADA network
  • 3x Gas vortex meters to be installed, 2x on air compressors outputs, and 1x on the steam supply from the boiler
  • 1x Gas flow meter to be installed on the boiler input
  • The combination of energy meters with their associated outputs will provide plant efficiency measurements

Reporting Capabilities

  • Produce data analysis tools comparing;
    • Compressed air flow rates vs energy consumption
    • Chilled water temperature vs energy consumption
    • Glycol temperature vs energy consumption
    • Steam flow rate vs energy consumption
    • Number bottles produced vs power consumption
  • Import additional SCADA datasets outside of the metering scope to include metrics such as number of bottles produced for normalization and analysis
  • Provide real-time alerting capabilities should user defined consumption thresholds be breached
  • Provide a sophisticated reporting engine with 50 standard reports, with any custom reports being developed outside of this proposal

Installation

  • Commission RTU converters
  • Test RTU bus loops from software before connection to SCADA
  • In conjunction with the electrical contractor, test, calibrate and commission electrical meters and digital/analogue inputs
  • Work with SCADA engineer to bring metering into SCADA system
  • Each area listed below was commissioned as they were installed;
    • Pikpak
    • Refrigeration
    • Glycol
    • Boiler House
    • Homogenizers and Separators
    • Flow meters and Gas pulse
    • Compile documentation to produce an O&M manual

OPTIMISING TECHNOLOGY

Develop organisational goals - translate problems into opportunities through technology to deliver value and return-on-investment

INTELLIGENCE IN BUSINESS

Turning data into knowledge at a building and portfolio level - provide business solutions that are specific and actionable

The Solution

By connecting the new metering points to the existing SCADA system, significant value has been added to the engineering teams on site by providing them with high frequency data.  Less frequent data, typically 15-minute interval data will be sent to the Switch Smart Hub for higher level analysis and reporting requirements. It is here that the data is turned into knowledge, through sophisticated data browsing and analysis tools, along with alerts and alarms, and a large collection of stock reports.

Summary

The comprehensive metering and monitoring package provided by Buildings Evolved provides Parmalat with opportunities to streamline operations and improve the bottom line; 1) Deliver an intuitive and easy to comprehend user interface (UI) for the entry of data and to better understand consumption in relation to plant and equipment 2) To provide timely and accurate data facilitating monitoring, analytics and reporting systems for end-users 3) To facilitate high-level strategic operations decision making processes over performance and efficiency programs.

The overarching technology strategy delivers easy access to prudent information in discernible forms. Its method and delivery is at the forefront of machine data technologies and user centric systems predicating efficiency programs for competitive advantage. The resulting technologically driven outcomes are a reflection of proactive governance, the hallmark of a company in forward motion.