Granarolo, Italy

Granarolo is Italy's fourth-ranked food group. The group is structured into two separate and synergic structures: a milk producers society (Granlatte) that operates the farming sector and gathers raw materials, and a joint-stock company (Granarolo Spa) that commercializes the products.In the company's Gioia del Colle and Bologna plants, Granarolo wanted to implement an internal traceability system to monitor the quality of the products distributed to the market, especially high-quality pasteurized milk. In particular, the customer needed to precisely identify every product lot. Thus, it was essential to identify and manage the flow of raw materials entering the plant, the intermediates, and the final products leaving the plant. Together with solution partner Atos Origin, Siemens implemented Simatic IT with a manufacturing execution system (MES) solution that now records the backward genealogy of every individual product lot and computes all necessary key performance indicators (KPIs).   Intelligent package for traceability The Simatic IT package with the Production Suite, Historian, and Report Manager modules fulfilled the customer's requirements as well as regulatory requirements. Specifically, Simatic IT Historian builds genealogy records in order to provide reports for backward and forward genealogy for each individual package. The genealogy records include the raw and intermediate materials used to produce the products as well as the packaging materials that are physically in contact with the products. The genealogy focuses on detecting possible cross-contamination during the entire manufacturing cycle. The Production Suite automatically defines all the routings among the various pieces of equipment involved in the production process. Additionally, the suite continuously monitors and updates the contents of all individual units, such as tanks and silos. The Report Manager allows access to genealogy reports from various locations and provides availability in real time. In order to associate personnel information with the traceability records, the genealogy function takes into account the operators who are currently logged on to the workstations.Simatic IT was integrated with the existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and warehouse management system (WMS) to enable the downloading of material master data and production orders as well as allowing for timely upgrades with performance feedback. Upon receiving a Simatic IT message, the ERP system prints the shipping documents for the product lot delivered. Over 30 different product types are handled by Simatic IT in the Gioia del Colle and Bologna plants. Simatic IT is part of the Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) concept, the Siemens solution for managing plant operation from the shop floor to the top floor.   “The implementation of Simatic IT brought us a lot of advantages. So we can now, for example, rapidly and flexibly react to a customer complaint, and we are able to quickly respond to internal quality audits.”   Roberto Poli, ICT Manager, Granarolo     Shorter response times, better monitoring To provide consistent genealogy records for each individual product lot along the entire manufacturing cycle, the customer had to associate with each product lot the data and information such as KPIs and quality data produced by in-process tests. These tests are performed during manufacturing operations. Furthermore, the inbound and outbound inventories as well as the intermediate warehouses had to be taken into account.The Simatic IT solution has allowed Granarolo to respond quickly to product quality issues, enabled better management of quality certification, and facilitated more detailed monitoring of plant efficiency. “The implementation of Simatic IT brought us a lot of advantages. So we can now, for example, rapidly and flexibly react to a customer complaint, and we are able to quickly respond to internal quality audits,” says Roberto Poli, information and communication technology (ICT) manager at Granarolo. Additionally, the flexibility of Simatic IT has enabled Granarolo to explore new possibilities for improving the entire manufacturing process.     The solution at Granarolo   Key challenges: Response to stringent regulatory requirements Brand image reinforcement by improving product quality Plant efficiency improvement Genealogy of each product lot in real time   Solution:   Simatic IT Production Suite Simatic IT Historian Simatic IT Report Manager   Key benefits:   Timely response to product quality issues Fast and focused recall procedures Better management of quality certification Detailed monitoring of plant efficiency Real-time answers to customer requests Common platform for various plants   Partner: Atos Origin Italia, www.atosorigin.com     info: www.siemens.com/simatic-itcontact: marketing.simatic-it@siemens.com