Food and beverage makers gain appetite for systems integration

Manchester, UK — Food and beverage manufacturers has significantly increased their adoption of integrated systems over the past twelve months, reports Siemens Industry Automation & Drive Technologies’ (IA&DT) — citing a doubling of sales of its Coriolis flow meter, which can be integrated into the Siemens PCS 7 control system.

There has been a marked change in the purchasing mentality of food and beverage plants as operators look to integrate their systems, instead of procuring products that work in isolation of each other, according to Danny Ronson, product manager, Siemens sensors & communication.

“This is evidenced by the recent sales figures for our Coriolis flow meter, which integrates with the plant by sending data to an embedded process transmitter in the Siemens PCS 7 control system. This allows operators to access and view the data collected continuously, in real time,” he said.

As well as monitoring flow, the meter also measures density, temperature and concentration of individual ingredients which clearly gives customers improved visibility over their manufacturing process.

The device also feeds critical diagnostics into the control system so any abnormalities can be picked up before the plant fails and production comes to a halt. Operators are then able to interrogate the flow meter remotely, enabling them to explore faults from the control room.

“In the case of one client, they have been able to reduce wastage by carefully monitoring the individual amounts of each of the three ingredients in a mixture,” said Ronson. “Before, if one was slightly too high or low it resulted in a faulty batch but now this can be identified and remedied before products come off the production line.

“While the sector has begun to embrace integrated systems to increase operational efficiency, we still come across operators who enter into the solution sourcing process without full knowledge and understanding of how a product will perform in relation to the plant as whole. This can easily work out to be a false economy as products can require a significant amount of operator time to manage, configure or fault find.”