Confectionery Manufacturing Execution System

Apr 9

Project Drive

A leading chocolate manufacturer in Pennsylvania needed a manufacturing execution system to tie together 9 different business systems into a single software package. This included customer order management, shipping and receiving, warehouse management, track and traceability, SPC, and in-process inventory tracking. Corso delivered a solution with Inductive Automation’s Ignition platform and helped take the company to the next level.

Solution

Over the years this confectioner had implemented various systems for ERP, warehouse management, shipping and receiving, inventory, quality, and a number of other business functions. They had learned about Inductive Automation’s Ignition platform and had used it for a proof of concept demo to get management buy-in. They needed help from an Ignition expert to architect the system and implement the MES functionality.

They partnered with Corso Systems to do the implementation. We worked with their internal subject matter experts to determine all of the system requirements, and build out an architecture for all of the various components to work together. Corso also worked with their IT department to set up connections to the various databases and backend systems Ignition needed to talk to to pass data back and forth.

The end result of this engagement was a system the production scheduler could use to see all open customer orders, prioritize what needed to be made when, and generate a schedule. This was pushed down to the operators, and gave them step-by-step work instructions, gave the warehouse folks pick lists and locations to drop off materials for the operators, and tracked production in real-time. If there were any delays the shipping department could re-schedule trucks accordingly, greatly improving the traffic situation at the loading docks.

This project led to additional phases of work to better integrate the production lines and improve automation, and also add additional production lines to the facility.

Benefits

Advanced scheduling tools enabled operators to use step-by-step recipe instructions to improve batch consistency.
Simplified business systems tools, integrating 9 packages into a single interface
Improved production capability through efficient scheduling, inventory management, and training
Provided process analytics tools not possible with the existing system
Enabled just in time manufacturing capability with real-time warehouse pick list management