Driving Digital Transformation in Thailand's Agro-Food Sector with Smart Manufacturing Solutions

Recently, iRev and Advantech collaborated on an OEE project for a prominent agro-food processing company in Thailand. The project’s initial phase involved developing a tailored solution for 10 machines, including low-tech equipments without PLCs, used in sausage production. Despite having an engineering department with IT expertise, the company had previously failed to develop an OEE solution over three years, due to challenges in integrating IT and OT systems and deriving meaningful insights from collected data. 

The company’s goals were clear: eliminate manual data collection on paper forms to avoid human errors and data omissions and reduce downtime to increase the utilization rate. During Phase 1, by employing Smart Factory/OEE, iRev helped the company identify additional areas for improvement, laying the groundwork for a robust digital transformation.

After conducting a thorough site investigation and interviewing shop floor staff, supervisors and management, iRev implemented Advantech’s Smart Factory/OEE solution, which incorporates various components that help achieve the company’s objectives.

First, they suggested implementing the MIC-770 modular fanless edge IPC. This enabled real-time production data processing, intuitive management dashboards, as well as advanced data analysis and visualization capabilities. 

Second, ECU-1251 IoT gateways were connected to machines with PLCs and ADAM-6051 I/O modules were used on machines without PLCs, such as thermo-packing and stuffer machines. Both the ECU-1251 and ADAM-6051 enabled seamless integration into the OEE system.

Additionally, iRev supplied dedicated the WOP-210K-NAE HMI tablets with a simple and intuitive UI, enabling shop floor staff to observe the production progress and input production data such as defect counts. This has simplified data collection while saving time and preventing data omissions.

For the agro-food processing company’s production lines, iRev leveraged Smart Factory’s open architecture and no-code development environment to create several production event categories, such as set-up, cool-down and heat-up, so the management can clearly see in the visualized dashboard and graphical reports not just downtime and idling time, but also which events caused minor stops, planned downtime and unexpected downtime.

iRev completed Phase 1 within three months, delivering not only the Smart Factory/OEE implementation but also a troubleshooting manual and training sessions for the company’s IT department, shop floor staff, production line supervisors and the management. The results were significant. Shop floor staff transitioned from paper-based manual data collection to digital inputs via the WOP-210K-NAE HMI tablets. The supervisors were able to gain real-time insights from Smart Factory/OEE, enabling timely corrective actions. And, the top management could accurately assess utilization rates and production capacity.

Although Phase 1 was completed only a few months ago, the agro-food processing company has already realized significant insights. For example, the accuracy of paper-based production reports was only 60% – 75%, and their actual OEE score was around 60% – 65%, which is much lower than anticipated. With Smart Factory/OEE, they have identified new areas for improvement, including operational procedures, management practices, production scheduling and many other areas.

One example of their new capabilities is comparing OEE scores between two production lines manufacturing the same SKU to determine if discrepancies are due to machines, staff, or other factors. Looking ahead, iRev plans to introduce the Smart Factory/FEMS solution to the company, focusing on energy efficiency optimization. Given the energy-intensive nature of food processing, this initiative aligns with the goal of transitioning from digital transformation to sustainability transformation.