Processing at Automation Fair 2025: Data Visibility for Yield Improvement, Predictive Machine Control, and Food Safety Traceability

From real-time yield tracking to automated process control, food and beverage stakeholders at Rockwell Automation's Automation Fair demonstrated how data driven technologies are eliminating waste, improving quality, and streamlining operations. See a few highlights from the show below: 

Finding opportunities for yield improvement

For processors looking to maximize yield in their operations, data is essential an essential tool. Without insight on where opportunities lie, it’s much more difficult to make changes.

Lee Coffey (left), Lance Rodenfels (center), and Greg Schmidt (right) of Rockwell AutomationProFood WorldGreg Schmidt, Director of Secure Digital Operations at Rockwell Automation, shared a case study highlighting the value of data transparency at the show, speaking alongside Rockwell's Lance Rodenfels and Lee Coffey.

A pudding plant worked with Rockwell to eliminate all unidentifiable loss in its operations, which made up about 34% of its loss to begin, or around $5 million.

In one example after installing a full manufacturing execution system (MES), “we could see that between what they thought were identical fillers, one of them was the problem child; 73% (of loss) was happening on filler two,” Schmidt said.

With that in mind, engineers could target that filler to adjust it as needed. Once an issue like that is resolved, “the problem child will move, and they’ll have real-time visibility into where they’re having loss. They’ll be able to direct their continuous improvement people to go make changes in real time,” Schmidt said.

Using the MES, the company brought its unidentifiable loss down to 0% and earned back the system investment in one year through that yield recovery.

“They could identify every dollar of where their materials were going because of how granular we could be with the control system data,” Schmidt said.

Digitalizing Tequila Production Monitoring

ECN Automation implemented Rockwell Automation's FactoryTalk Optix at a tequila bottling facility to centralize production data, inventory tracking, and quality control across the operation, ECN’s Gabriela Saldívar shared at the show.

Gabriela Saldivar, manager of information and data analytics, ECN AutomationProFood WorldThe system integrates instrumentation data with tools like Excel databases, a Power BI dashboard, and other resources to track key KPIs. According to Saldivar, the benefits extend well beyond data visibility:

“For digitalization and operational efficiency, they are eliminating paper records because now all of this information goes directly through Optix and then to the database. There’s also real-time monitoring for continuous tracking of the production and product quality. And it eliminated human error, because now they can do traceability on their batches,” said Saldivar. “Talking about production control and improvement, with line efficiency measurement, they’re monitoring liters of tequila per batch, water consumption on cleaning cycles, and time required on cleaning cycles to improve changeovers.”