Enterprise manufacturing intelligence data used to uncover performance of top food companies

Manufacturing intelligence vendor Informance International recently released a benchmarking report of 141 production lines in the food & beverage industry over a five-month period. Best-in-class enterprises outpaced laggards in three key areas: Asset Utilization, by 246 percent; Overall Equipment Effectiveness, by 150 percent; and Operational Availability, by 125 percent.

Says Sudy Bharadwaj, Informance's VP of solution consulting, “Best-in-class performers registered only .46 percent of capacity that was unknown. With laggards, it was 21.12 percent unknown.”

The more critical issue is whether a company is able to analyze its performance with accompanying analytics to such fine degree. Providing that capability—known as real-time performance management—has vendors including Informance, Activplant, Incuity, and Parsec Automation working to capture market share. And just last fall, enterprise vendor CDC Software acquired plant performance management vendor MVI Technology.

With MVI's solution, the business intelligence capabilities, dashboard, and best-in-class performance metrics have been assembled to enable production ramp-up in just three days.

Dakota, Ill.-based Berner Foods relies on MVI as it continues to branch out its product lines. “We had a lot of new areas to drive the business into, and we needed to be flexible enough to deliver different product mixes for various customers while maintaining our standard for quality,” says Berner VP Gary Gold.

The problem: Production was gauged to a manual system that could only provide information that was eight hours old. Berner brought in MVI to run a thee-day review process where the plant was mapped to the system, and line operators got hands-on training.

According to Zack Kneubuehl, Berner's MVI administrator, MVI restructured Berner's manufacturing lines and processes, as well as its work week. The mapping also revealed that running 24/7 was actually leaner than running three shifts five days a week.

“When you measure, the numbers are hard to argue with,” says Gold. “We've structured each line to understand what maximized capacity is. We plan to max them out, then look at more capital expansion. MVI helps us see the future.”