User Report Unilever
MES solution FASTEC 4 PRO at the Unilever Deutschland Produktions GmbH & Co. OHG (Heilbronn).
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The Software Solution FASTEC 4 PRO at Unilever
Regardless of whether it is a side, salad dressings, soups, gravies or readymade meals: As the largest Unilever brand, Knorr is represented in more than 100 counties worldwide. In Germany alone, there are more than one billion Knorr packages sold in one year only.
It all began in 1838: Carl Heinrich Knorr founded the company in Heilbronn, starting off as a factory supplying spices. 150 years later, the name is well-established and stands for fast and tasty soups, it is a synonym for convenience foods. Since early 2013, the production at the Unilever plant in Heilbronn has been supported by MES FASTEC 4 PRO.
- Industry: Food industry
- Goal: Monitoring and optimization of the packaging lines
- In use: MES solution FASTEC 4 PRO with the modules Machine Data Acquisition as well as the additional functions Monitoring, Process Messages
- Interfaces: To SAP, the process control system and the inline printing system
"The MDA module is our basic tool for determining losses in packaging lines, and thus it is an essential tool for our production."
"Moreover, the multiple testing and safeguarding by different systems is of paramount importance and in line with our business continuity management. This way, the vital information is always and instantly available in the systems, for example in case of a network failure. In such a case, production does not need to be stopped.“
Short and Precise
The Plant in Heilbronn is the birthplace of the largest Unilever brand, namely: Knorr
Here, soups, sauces or gravy thickener, salad dressings and basic products are produced and exported to more than 40 countries. The MES solution FASTEC 4 PRO was initially implemented for the machine data acquisition and evaluation.
FASTEC 4 PRO replaces the existing MES
Even before the FASTEC solution, the Unilever plant in Heilbronn already became acquainted with using a Manufacturing Execution System. Gerhard Weinert, business process management manufacturing at the Unilever plant in Heilbronn, explains: “Before the implementation of FASTEC 4 PRO we have worked with the MES of a competitor for approximately 20 years. Still, we decided in favor of a change of system. One reason was that our previously used system was outdated – the acquisition of a new MES outweighed an update of the old system. Another factor was that in the standard MES, our company-specific requirements could not be met. We immediately had a good feeling about FASTEC to successfully implement the system according to our requirements.” In more than ten project steps, the system has been constantly developed.
Different requirements of the employee groups
FASTEC 4 PRO is used in many departments at the Unilever plant in Heilbronn: in production, work preparation, planning, controlling, management and technical services (e.g. maintenance). This is why in addition to the PCs on the lines, many office PCs are equipped with FASTEC.
OEE evaluation according to Unilever’s standards
In order to attain an even more detailed evaluation of occurring states, the OEE evaluation included in the FASTEC standard has been expanded according to Unilever’s needs. Additional status categories can now be defined in the FASTEC 4 PRO Office Client (e.g. different loss categories). The drill-down feature allows these categories to be analyzed in detail at every level. Additionally, the evaluation includes a tabular report of shift performances. All values can also be displayed in live monitoring.
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