It’s strange to think of Daisy and Frieda chewing the cud while checking out one another’s RFID tags. Yet, tracking devices are all the rage among the cows supplying milk to Arla Foods’ hi-tech Aylesbury dairy, WM’s Manufacturing Technology Day at the plant heard.
“All of our supermarket customers want total traceability,” explained Alan Causon, engineering manager at Arla, to delegates keen to learn how the £150m greenfield site had brought new technology to bear in the quest for manufacturing excellence. “The cows get screened before being milked. It’s complete traceability down to the herd of cows that supplied every tanker load”
The benefits are numerous according to Causon. From a safeguard against contamination to heightened quality control. “The product testing data allows us to analyse the quality of milk from each farm. For us, it’s all about the cream content of the milk, that’s where the money is. That varies according to the type of cow, its diet, the farm and the time of year.”
Causon added: “We can also type test for bacteria: allowing us to identify a strain immediately and advise a farm on how to treat it. Before, we’d pay for a third party test and you wouldn’t own all the data. We actually own that data now and charge other companies to use it.”
Arla has struck the Holy Grail in turning data capture into tangible business benefit. Around 82% of UK manufacturers believe better insight into their own production data enable a product improvement, according to WM’s recent Technology in UK Manufacturing survey (WM, April issue, p20).
But, the search is being frustrated amid the sheer wealth of data surfacing from the shopfloor. “We have around 30,000 parts in a civil large engine,” said Brett Reeve, manufacturing systems manager for Civil Large Engines at Rolls-Royce. “There’s so much data for each component, but if you wanted to go and look that data up then it would be difficult because it might reside in 20 different systems.... Having that ability to link all that data would be really beneficial.”
Fools gold, delegates heard, was to seek salvation in one single IT solution. Chris Mulvihill, operations director at EMS Radio Fire & Security Systems, commented: “There’s always been too much of an emphasis on: ‘we’re not getting what we want so we need to put a shiny new system in place’. In reality, businesses are made up of many separate systems that are absolutely superb for their application. Could you replace them with one all in? No, not without compromise”
Far better to adopt a step-by-step approach to IT upgrades, according to Pip Fox, industry lead: Manufacturing, Utilities and services at Microsoft, “Step one is not to replace your six systems with one system. Step one is to better understand what you have and how to link systems together so you can make more informed decisions.”
Start small and stay focussed, added Fox: “A lot of companies take a small problem to start with and they get some ROI out of that and reinvest the return in the next. It becomes self funding, until it gets to the point where they can say: ‘we’ve got enough proof that we can do a big project’.”
The incremental approach should be backed up a clear IT strategy, added David Nicholl, country director UK & Ireland at Rockwell Automation. “I hear a lot of talk from delegates here about not being able to communicate across systems. I’m sorry to say that’s because there wasn’t a strategy. People put in a system for this and another system for that. You’ve got to have a clear strategy to get the data you believe will bring you value.”
That’s something IT suppliers could facilitate with clearer examples of ROI benefits, said Reeve of Rolls-Royce. “Help us bring to life what some of the benefits to life. It’s very difficult to visualize those paybacks. You’re hoping that bringing the data together will bring you the intelligence to improve your processes, but you can’t actually be sure. I need to be able to articulate how I build engines more efficiently.”
The comment echoed WM’s survey finding that 36% of manufacturers are hesitant over IT upgrades because they simply don’t understand the benefits. Intriguingly, 91% went on to say that adopting latest technology was key to remaining competitive.
“Of course none of this is easy or we wouldn’t all be sitting around the table today,” reflected Nicholl of Rockwell. “It takes investment. But, you can do that gradually nowadays rather than a big bang approach.... If we want to increase manufacturing here [in the UK] then we need to automate.”
A sentiment only reinforced as delegates looked out across Arla’s despatch area where 85 laser guided robots load hundreds of milk cartons onto lorries. They never tire, take a two week break to Tenerife and they’re bound to impress visiting supermarket buyers. All in all, Arla’s tech friendly dairy, is on course to deliver an ROI within 8-10 years, according to Causon.
Arla has shown the wisdom in investing in new technology. Now it is for the herd decide whether to follow.
3 things we learned at the WM Technology Day
1) A code for quality: RFID and bar coding are custodians of product quality. Arla uses RFID system and optical character recognition, linked to SAP, to check milk meets quality standards throughout production. EMS and City Technology, who produce fire alarm systems and sensors respectively, described in-house coding systems, linked to their ERP, that scanned shopfloor assemblies against the correct bill of materials and rejected .However, only 14% use RFID tagging in wider industry, according to WM research.
2) Data dizzy: Manufacturing attendees reported growing disorientation in spotting the wheat from the chaff when confronted with the wealth of data from manufacturing processes. Delegates also aired consternation over the task of bringing data together from disparate on-site IT systems. Attendees urged more help from suppliers in meeting this challenge and called for more ROI examples to help speed upgrade projects. “Anything over three years is a real challenge,” said Rob Love of City Technology.
3) Security: cyber security is becoming a growing issue in industrial environments, the Technology Day heard. One sister Arla site experienced downtime after a USB stick from a trusted supplier introduced a virus, which was targeted at industry operating systems. The Aylesbury dairy operates strict IT protocol to prevent similar incidents, said Causon. Engineers are prohibited from plugging laptops into line-side equipment and must use a secure web portal to carry out any interrogation of plant.
