DESCRIPTION
Bottling line supervision project.
The project consists in the creation of a modular system for the supervision, management and control of the bottling line production.
- Needs
- The Solution
- The Benefits
THE NEEDS
The Leonardo da Vinci Wineries were founded in 1961 as a result of the will of the owners of thirty agricultural companies, who decided to join together to deal with the problems that arose in the aftermath of the collapse of the sharecropping system. The first harvest was in 1965 and in the first years of business, the Leonardo da Vinci Wineries limited themselves to the simple transformation and sale of bulk wine. Only in 1971 did they also begin direct marketing of two bottled products, which are still part of their range today: Chianti Leonardo and Collebello. In the following years, encouraged by the successes achieved, they decided to expand the range of their wines.
The Leonardo da Vinci Cellars represent a cutting-edge Cooperative Cellar, which covers a vineyard area of 500 hectares with 120 associated companies, an average production of 45,000 quintals of grapes, and an annual production of 5,000,000 bottles, capable of interpreting this role in a contemporary way, offering its members the peculiar identity and strong motivations that derive from being producers of quality wines, with a view to continuous improvement.
Supervision of the bottling line
Before the introduction of the Supervision System, the management of the line was entrusted exclusively to paper-based procedures. Gennaro Mori, Production Director of Cantina Vinci, explains: “Our bottling and packaging line is highly automated and is sized for a maximum hourly production of 12,000 bph. Our winery must manage quality production, consistent in numbers and flexible in products. The objective was: how could we improve the production efficiency of the line while continuing to guarantee the absolute quality of our products and their traceability?
The company therefore decided to invest in a computerized system for controlling the line integrated with the AS400 company management system. The approach to the project was systematic; although we had a clear idea of the project as a whole, we decided to develop and test the system initially on just one machine on the line. The labeller therefore became the master machine and in collaboration with Studio Progetti Automation we developed a modular supervision system specifically designed for our needs.”
THE SOLUTION
Supervision of the bottling lines
A new Supervision System has thus been introduced. The application was created by Studio Progetti Automation of Mantua, of which Paolo Tosi is Technical Manager: “In agreement with the technicians of Cantina Vinci and in particular with Gian Paolo Scarselli, Manager of the EDP company management system, we have developed an IT system that, in our opinion, has unique characteristics for the management of a bottling line.
Integration with the company’s AS400 management system; in particular, this means management of production orders, real-time verification of their components and return of information on daily production to the management system for correct and immediate management of the warehouse and traceability.
The Supervision System automatically manages the launch of daily orders into production, takes them from the management system and sends the necessary information to the connected machines for rapid production start-up (for example, it sends the dimensions, based on the format, for adjusting the height of the heads, groups, etc. or sends the exact number of bottles to be produced for that specific order with the management of the automatic closing of the gate of each machine when it reaches this number). of the data, sends the messages, the batch and the type of barcode (as well as the content) to be printed on the labels and cartons to the inkjets that print on the labels of the bottles and cartons and to the casecoders present in the line, with evident time savings and reduction of errors for the line operators. The Supervision System verifies in real time, before launching production, that the components of the order to be produced are present in the line (i.e. it verifies the accuracy and the quantity downloaded from the warehouse of the components of each order to be launched into production).
At the end of each order produced, the Supervision System returns all the information on the production just carried out to the management software, thus facilitating warehouse management and traceability. Statistical tools; both directly from the server and from connected clients, the system allows you to extract from the SQL database of the history the production efficiency of each controlled machine, the OEE efficiency of the line and the anomalies of each machine by day, period and batch.
From the System, with just a few mouse clicks, you can obtain how many and which orders were produced in a given period, the times and the graphic trend of the production speed, which orders were produced for a specific article code and in a given period, the components and quantities actually produced for each order. Automatic management of format change times; Cantine Vinci have established different types of format change (from the complete change of all the equipment to the change of just the type of bottle or label, classifying them with letters of the alphabet. An algorithm has been implemented within the supervision system that, by analyzing the order to be launched into production with the previously produced order (even the previous day), establishes and memorizes the type of format change performed; since the production launch procedure is automatic and completely managed by the supervision system, the latter also memorizes the times between one production launch and the next.
In this way, quickly and reliably, it is possible to obtain from the system the statistics of the types and times of format change in a given period; we therefore have a fundamental tool for correct and effective production planning. In addition to the features listed above, the supervision system also has other typical features common to other systems on the market such as redundant multi-client and multi-server architecture, unlimited number of tags and pages, access to the historical database via commercial software packages (Excel for example), direct interface via OPC, Ethernet network, serial and digital signals with the plc of the automatic machines on the line for real-time monitoring of their operation and ongoing production, saving reports in commercial format (example .doc, .xls)”.
THE BENEFITS
Increased production efficiency
Gennaro Mori says: “The introduction of the Supervision System has contributed to improving the production efficiency of the bottling line: by avoiding errors and saving significantly on the preparation times of the line for the production of daily orders, we are now able to optimize the entire production flow being able to demonstrate with objective data what the weak points of the entire process are.
At the moment we are thinking of integrating other machines on the line into the system and in the future we will create a single IT system that will obviously communicate with the systems currently present in the company, and that will integrate the Cellar (presses, pumps, filters, central heating and cooling system), the temperature control of the storage tanks, the bottling line and the purifier.”