Web-based plant architecture improves rework and variance rates for coffee producer.
Realcafe is part of the Tristao Group of Companies, one of the largest conglomerates in the Brazilian coffee industry. During an instrumentation and control tradeshow in Sao Paulo, Realcafe came up with the idea of installing a plant-wide automation system. Company executives had three critical considerations: cost, simplicity and ease of use. Any new equipment purchases had to be affordable due to budget constraints. And, the system had to be simple and easy to use. "We had a 30-year-old plant operating on manual control," says Soares, "so the level of in-house expertise available to engineer a highly sophisticated automation system was almost non-existent."