As a glass manufacturer, Gallo Glass is going to do more than simply produce glass bottles quickly and reliably. The plant's technical staff must also meet and support the company's and its parent company's E. & J. Gallo Winery`s requirements for quality, safety and environmental protection. The Gallo glass factory produces 1 billion glass bottles each year. This amazing output can be attributed to advanced production systems, including monitoring applications from GE Fanuc Automation.
Gallo Glass produces up to hundreds of different types, sizes and colors of bottles. As one of the world's largest glass container production bases, the company supplies bottles for a wide variety of winemakers' wines. In addition, it also provides services for the manufacture of special beverages such as apple juice and Italian espresso syrup.
George White, Information Systems Manager at Gallo Glass, explained: “The original intention of creating the glass factory was to provide stable and reliable high-quality wine bottles for the E. & J. Gallo winery. The glass products we produce today will be on the production line tomorrow. The wine is filled and labelled at the factory.â€
SFIS helps production
In the Gallo glass factory, automation control is widely used in important production fields, and the art of bottle making is combined with high technology to meet the needs of production, quality, consumer safety and environmental protection. At the heart of the plant's Automated Shop Information System (SFIS) is Proficy-HMI/SCADA-iFIX® from GE Fanuc Automation. The integrated information system collects and collates data generated by each bottle making process, including lot number, furnace, forehearth, molding shop, forming, glass toughening furnace, inspection and packaging.
With the workshop information system (SFIS), Gallo Glass improved product quality, increased production by 5 percentage points, reduced the number of defectives by 25%, and reduced downtime by 25%, resulting in an annual savings of $5 million. The direct benefits. In addition, the factory has also significantly saved the energy consumed by glass furnaces, improved the efficiency of equipment and reduced the heat loss of the furnace by as much as 80%, thus achieving the goal of environmental protection. Other advantages of the system include: reducing employee training time and facilitating employee transfer.
It is these benefits that helped John Gallo, vice president of Gallo Glass, establish a smoother supply chain. He said: "Our desire is to create a management culture centered on information. In this corporate culture atmosphere, each employee will be in the process of manufacturing each bottle will be a perfect combination of traditional crafts and modern technology. Our workflow can be influenced by many interconnected factors, which increase the complexity.The new technology is easy to learn and new employees are easy to use, which also makes them more active and efficient.Finally, we foresee the adoption of new technologies will become We have successfully achieved a solid foundation for lean/Six Sigma production."
The plant's 14 production lines operate 24 hours a day. The production process begins with hot molten glass water flowing into each production line and eventually becomes a glass bottle, which is inspected and packaged. The iFIX nodes are deployed at the beginning and end of each production line. The iFIX software will collate data from all devices on the production line. The software is based on an open architecture that can be connected to other devices such as sensing and inspection equipment, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), measurement and time control systems, and Ethernet TCP/IP-based communications. In order to obtain fast communication at a lower cost, the factory adopts a client/server database architecture and operates in a server-based computing mode. Use the iClientTS terminal server version of iFIX running on a CITRIX server center as the server and use a Windows professional terminal device as the client.
White said: “Initially, we used automatic control on sensing and inspection equipment. Since then, we have found that we need to collect production information in order to make more appropriate decisions. Before choosing iFIX as the plant’s sole HMI/SCADA system, we Many of the software on the market have been evaluated. One of the reasons iFIX wins is that the unified interface it implements allows all employees to operate on the same page and share information."
Bruce Williams, senior production manager at Gallo Glass, stated: "SFIS helps all production managers stay on the cutting edge of production."
Troy Wells, director of maintenance and engineering at Gallo Glass, said: "Gallo's SFIS system has helped us to transform our production concept from a simple 'production-inspection' to an advanced 'production-measurement-improvement' model. This brand-new production concept continuously urges us to go to the production line, look for problems from the entire production process and make improvements.With SFIS help, we can solve problems in the first time.The system is constantly collecting and updating important production information. The excellent performance in the area always surprises me."
Wells continued: “Overall, any part that can measure data can be improved. Gallo's deployment of SFIS is the catalyst that will drive everything to progress. From a maintenance and engineering perspective, I’m the first to start working every day.†The thing is to look at the SFIS. I will monitor it all day and then the last thing to end the day is to close the SFIS."
The SFIS system deployed by Gallo helped us to complete the transformation from simple "production-inspection" to advanced "production-measurement-improvement".
The power of iFIX
The IFIX system consists of more than 20 HMI screens, which provide the plant's production team with 30 reports including the factory scoreboard. This vision from Gallo Glass was designed and implemented by system integrator Saber Engineering. Its engineering team includes Brian Thomas, Dennis Hopkins and Bob Sullivan.
This easy-to-use, Internet-based monitoring software integrates with Oracle Database to collect and process data from devices, and then translate these facts into dynamic text, alerts, and graphical information. This information will also be displayed on the terminal installed on the production line, allowing employees to have a quick and intuitive understanding of the production situation. Operators and managers can view Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as Percent Pack showing the rate of qualified products per 100 bottles produced, the number of defectives, losses, production on each production line, and other information. More importantly, the system can report the occurrence of defective products in time to help workers correct problems in time to ensure product quality.
White also said: "The SFIS workshop information system is not only used to monitor production but also functions as a real-time dashboard. We generate so much data every day that it is impossible to analyze data by hand. There is the most advanced information available. Technology helps us process data so that we can better use this data.
For example, the technical team can redesign the glass forming process based on the analysis data to eliminate defective products and reduce fragmentation. This process improvement can reduce scrap and increase production. The team also made an article on the thickness and distribution of the bottle wall and used the bottle wall thickness run chart. This change. This article comes from the Chinese bottle network. Into the bottle of beverages has a long-term significance. White's assessment of this is: "By adopting this system as a tool for engineering and planning, we have achieved many important results, which in turn can improve product quality while saving costs."
The technicians also adjusted the batch and furnace operations based on the root cause analysis. The improved furnace design is more efficient, saving energy, reducing costs, and protecting the environment. The Gallo Glass Plant uses a special GAS-OXY combustion process to burn pure oxygen and significantly reduce nitrous oxide emissions.
Gallo Glass is the first major user of this process. The plant has built a cryogenic oxygen plant to produce oxygen for its own use. When applied to an electrostatic precipitator or an exhaust gas treatment device, the IFIX software runs on a desktop computer for further operational analysis. After reducing the emissions by 80%, the air quality has been greatly improved, which fully reflects the Gallo glass factory's consistent commitment to environmental protection.
After the bottle is formed, the automatic bottle inspection device plays an important role as a gatekeeper on the production line. According to White's estimate, timely inspections can reduce the incidence of defective products by 25%. In the production line. This article comes from the Chinese bottle net. During operation, the camera photographs the bottle in transit, and the system analyzes the shape or color and the severity of the spot. The causes and manifestations of the defective condition are many and may be unmelted sand or blisters, and it looks like a black spot.
Another machine will insert a plastic spike into each bottle to check if the bottleneck is unimpeded, and if there is a blockage, it is judged as waste. The inspection process also included checking the top of the long bottle for cracks and ensuring that the bottle mouth was clean and flat to avoid leaking beverages in the bottle.
Defective conditions can cause the bottle to break. The Gallo Glass Factory has taken the following measures: 100% automatic inspection of all bottles, including random checks and manual inspections, to ensure the best quality and to provide consumers with the safest bottles. Once the phenomenon of defects is found, the staff will use this system to adjust the machine, calibrate the metering or perform other tests.
The system is not only a software but also a powerful tool kit that provides technical support for successful management concepts.
The Gallo Glass Factory collects 2.5 million packets generated from production to inspection every day. The system provides an Internet port for global information queries. In addition to dialing, users can access the client system remotely through the virtual private network and the Internet.
These data not only contribute to the improvement of production conditions, but also enable the factory to meet and maintain ISO quality certification, and have obtained the critical control points for pollution analysis in the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) promoted by the U.S. Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ( Part of the data required by the HACCP plan.
Staff can easily query the HACCP database through the iFIX software to clarify the query. Susan Anders, HACCP's quality manager, pointed out: "The whole data query process of HACCP has been fully automated and data can be easily and quickly analyzed."
Recently, White detailed the system for the Independent Glass Producers Research Association. He hopes that Gallo Glass's innovations will benefit other manufacturers, customers and related organizations.
White explains: “In the creation of a highly efficient and environmentally friendly glass production process, Gallo glass factory is indispensable. We will share these technologies with other companies. The system is not only a software, but also a powerful tool kit. We provide technical support for successful management concepts. The combination of advanced management and information technology has not only brought us superior benefits but also attracted the attention of the industry.†GE Fanuc expressed its willingness to cooperate with Gallo glass factory to promote the system.
While the entire industry's focus is on the Gallo glass factory, the technical team is still committed to using the SFIS system and iFIX software to bring the company's benefits to the next level. White concluded by summing up: "Since the system was implemented and the process was readjusted, the bottles we produced have been greatly improved both in quantity and quality."
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