The client contacted ADF when they needed to help a sister facility’s demand requirements. The project included the redesign of a baking equipment production line to output a new flavor additive into an existing chocolate cookie coating, alternating outputs between the new non-dairy coating and the existing dairy-based product without cross contamination or production interruption. The resulting line addition is able to produce the desired cookie product at a higher yield than their sister facility.
Project Summary
This project required coordination between the facility and ADF to work exclusively during shutdown periods which only occurred for two-to-three days a month with a three-month startup deadline.
- Redesigned existing piping to allow new product to feed from an adjacent tank farm
- Maintained flexibility with existing piping to allow multiple process runs (dairy and non-dairy) with minimal downtime between products
- Verified the facility’s latest PLC program for the baking line (>500 lines of code)
- Planned site visits with client to understand their processes and review programming options for best results
- Reprogrammed the PLC code to mimic a batch process and to minimize impact to operations
- Created a new HMI display for process overview and adjusted three existing displays
- Coordinated with facilities to upload new PLC programming and HMI displays for testing
- Verified field I/O for proper control and action prior to startup
- Integrated new controls and alarming based on requirements for the non-dairy process
- Supported startup to confirm proper functionality during production
- Completed 210 total engineering hours
