Consumers want assurances that the food they buy contains only what it says on the label and achieving this is critical for producers. Failure can result in fines, lost business and even a damaged reputation. Machine design, software and digitisation are critical in enhancing safety for ensuring optimised production and machine analytics.

Companies like Schneider Electric have much to offer machine builders in the areas of process digitisation. Recent technologies support production information management (PIM), food packaging serialisation and automated labelling. These advances in traceability also help to advance the cause for better safety control.

Fast changing production requests now require advanced machine connectivity. Seamless connectivity relies on robust linkages between hardware, edge control, and software for machine analytics. This means that stand-alone machines are becoming rarer in a production environment.

The benefits of process digitalisation in food and beverage are evident, but there are some challenges. The biggest involves how to process and analyse data in real time to maintain quality and regulatory compliance. To address this challenge, organisations need the visibility and traceability delivered by industrial edge computing solutions.

Machine analytics

Tracking the supply chain from beginning to end is critical. Consider a dairy operation that needs to trace the journey of milk, starting at the milking facility and then making its way through pasteurisation, bottling, transport, and delivery. Digital technologies such as bar codes, sensors, and RFID readers can track the whole journey, allowing the milk producer to make quick adjustments. If there is a pinch point in production, the company can correct it. If the consumption of chocolate milk goes up, the company can boost production.

Digitalisation also enhances productivity by streamlining processes and lowering costs through predictive maintenance. For example, data collected from production equipment can help operators anticipate failure. In that way, they can schedule maintenance before a machine causes problems and at a time when it will not interrupt production. The preventative approach also eliminates reliance on calendar-based maintenance schedules which can result in performing unnecessary maintenance tasks.

Edge computing can deliver machine analytics in these situations. With so much data flowing in from the supply chain, it would take too long to process it all through the cloud when real-time decisions are necessary.

The ability to achieve such linkages depends on an open and connectable platform which combines connected products, edge control and software that enables analytics and straightforward application integration. The Schneider Electric EcoStruxure open platform allows machine connections through several types of field buses and Ethernet buses. It guides users and machine builders to achieve higher levels of business decision making.