Customer Success Story: United Biscuits
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- Europe
Country
- United Kingdom
Product
- ICONICS GENESIS32™
- DataWorX™32
- GraphWorX™32
- ScriptWorX™32
Tech Stack
- Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) 6.0
- PLC
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Innovation Output
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Middleware, SDKs & Libraries
Applicable Industries
- Food & Beverage
Applicable Functions
- Discrete Manufacturing
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Manufacturing System Automation
- Process Control & Optimization
Services
- System Integration
- Training
About The Customer
United Biscuits (UB) is a leading international manufacturer of biscuits, with a strong presence in the United Kingdom and Europe. The company is known for its commitment to quality and innovation. One of its brands, McVitie’s, operates a plant in Tollcross, Glasgow, where they produce a variety of biscuits. The plant features a multizone oven that produces thousands of biscuits per hour. Before the implementation of automation, the control of this oven was governed by an operator with many years of experience. The operator's knowledge and skill were crucial in producing high-quality biscuits.
The Challenge
United Biscuits, specifically their McVitie’s brand, was looking to automate their biscuit baking process. The challenge was to translate the intelligence of more than 30 years of experience into an automatic, high-performance process control system that was user-friendly and could be retrofitted on the existing equipment. The control of the oven, which produces thousands of biscuits per hour, was previously governed by an operator with many years of experience. The knowledge of this operator was documented and formulated into a set of rules for adjusting the oven control based on the quality of the biscuits exiting the oven.
The Solution
The solution involved the deployment of ICONICS GENESIS32™ software. ICONICS engineers, working alongside McVitie’s technical staff, developed a software system to execute the rules and automatically make the control adjustments within the oven. The data acquisition module, DataWorX™32, acquires and manipulates data, which are then accessed by the HMI, GraphWorX™32, and a rules-based module. The rules-based module built into GENESIS32 then applies the rules developed from more than 30 years experience of the operators and outputs the instructions, via the scripting module ScriptWorX™32, to the PLC, which controls the burners and temperatures in the oven zones. GraphWorX32 also performs the other more traditional SCADA functions of graphical display of data and process elements.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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