Control system for the Southern Hemisphere's largest bakery
Date: 04 January 2005
Overall plant control, and the supervisory control system (SCADA) for four lines of plant at the new George Weston Foods Australian bakery are being designed and supplied by Baker Perkins.
GWF ordered Baker Perkins bread and roll making equipment
following visits to recently installed plants where Baker
Perkins' world leading unit machines have been integrated into
sophisticated, high-efficiency systems.
GWF also appreciated the benefits of a control system designed by
an equipment manufacturer with in-depth knowledge of the process
and product requirements specific to the industrial plant baking
industry.
The system specification includes nine industrial PCs and two tag
servers for data exchange with SAP, covering four production lines
- two bread, one roll and one muffin. The system monitors and
controls equipment from several OEMs, and covers the full operation
from ingredient feed/batching to basket handling.
Features include recipe scheduling downloaded from SAP, product
reporting, batch usage reporting, downtime reporting, video
capture, swipe card log in, batch tracking across all four lines,
full instruction manuals as part of the integrated display, and
electrical schematic diagrams embedded within the
application.
It will provide GWF with a number of distinct advantages. They
include:
- Batch tracking, reducing errors on recipe changeover, and time between changeovers. Product quality is improved because all changeovers are handled automatically. Batch tracking is set in place from the schedule downloaded from SAP, and automatically adjusts parameters as the product passes through the plant.
- Data exchange with the management information system, allowing opportunities for long term improvements to be identified and introduced.
- Full usage reports giving improved control and reconciliation between goods in and goods out.
- Instant visibility of the entire processes using both the 'view anywhere' ability allowing users to view any part of the process from any terminal, and by capturing video from around all four plants.
- Better security, by permitting only users with appropriate access levels to change the process, recording who changed what and when.
- Advanced help features enabling engineers to trouble-shoot quickly in the event of faults
- Downtime reporting allowing management to identify and fix frequent or common problems.
The plant is typically run on a ControlLogix platform handling
both DeviceNet and ConmtrolNet where needed. The system provides
data to SAP for reconciliation.
Baker Perkins is supplying equipment for two bread-making
lines and a bun and roll system for the $135 million bakery and
distribution centre at Chullora, in south-west Sydney. This will be
the Southern Hemisphere's largest bakery, and will become the
centre for GWF's New South Wales bread distribution system. It has
been dubbed Project Phoenix, after the company's main bakery in
Fairfield, Sydney was destroyed by fire over 18 months ago.
The two new Baker Perkins bread production lines will each be
capable of producing 8,750 loaves per hour, and the bun line is
rated at 40,000 per hour.
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