Canpac International Ltd. of New Zealand, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fonterra, is an integrated packaging facility offering flexible and customized blending as well as filling and packaging solutions for a range of dairybased consumer products. Each year, Canpac prepares more than 20,000 tons of dry blends of specialty nutraceutical and baby food formulas for multi-national dairy companies. In total annual production, Canpac manufactures 65,000 tons of products, 50 million cans and 100 million sachets (packets) that are sold in more than 60 countries.
[pullquote]With the ability to manufacture and print nearly 500 types of cans and 160 types of sachets, Canpac is contracted by other consumer food companies to produce packaging solutions. Canpac uniquely provides a one-stop-shop for straight packaging or segmented products.
The challenge
Canpac recognized the benefit of improving visibility into key production metrics. However, the company wanted a more efficient way for managers to quickly analyze internal data. Canpac wanted to implement a common performance monitoring system throughout all its production departments, seeking a solution that would proactively drive performance to its aggressive business targets. The goal was to improve productivity while reducing waste throughout its packaging processes.
Canpac requested a manufacturing dashboard — an instrument that would give them complete visibility into production processes. This single system required the ability to capture data online in real-time, providing all the key metrics to Canpac managers to allow quicker and more profitdriven decisions based on an accurate understanding of production performance.
Canpac’s operations focus on performance management, meeting key performance indicators (KPIs) around efficiency, visibility, throughput and quality.
Finding a solution that would allow Canpac to become more efficient, reduce waste and, most importantly, change the way the company makes decisions was no small feat.
Predictive intelligence drives success
The Pavilion solution, powered by the Pavilion8 software platform, monitors 32 manufacturing lines in six departments and brings the information from disparate data sources to plant managers and line operators in one easy-to-use, browser-based system that allows for anytime, anywhere secure access.
The Production Performance Management (PPM) application automatically and instantaneously provides predictive assessments of the plant’s performance, allowing businesses to make highly informed production and economic decisions.
The PPM application captures data from a variety of sources, automatically validates and qualifies the input data, aggregates, calculates and contextually stores the resulting information. Canpac personnel, from line operators to managers, can view personalized dashboards, KPIs and initiate on-demand reports.
Additionally, the Pavilion solution provides performance metrics by both plant and role for line uptime, operational effectiveness and efficiency, waste, downtime and quality assurance. Using the system, users can compare current project statistics against both historic and predicted measures.
The system allows Canpac to proactively drive profitability using Model-Predictive Intelligence (MPI). The Pavilion8 application:
- Integrates predictive, model-based calculations into dashboards and planning systems for proactive and accurate decision making
- Automates decision making based on established criteria for closed-loop operation
- Provides scalable, manageable persistence of calculations and aggregated information at the plant level.
Fundamental changes equal big gains for Canpac
With the Pavilion8-based software infrastructure and Pavilion’s model-predictive intelligence, Canpac has fundamentally changed its decisionmaking processes from reactive to proactive. Ultimately, Pavilion’s Production Performance Management software gives Canpac real-time visibility into its manufacturing performance. This new insight allows managers to make faster, more profitable decisions thus positively impacting the bottom line.