70 million jars a year, 300,000 a day... just normal

Nestlé Finland is a subsidiary of the worldwide food company Nestlé S.A. of Switzerland. The company has being operating in Finland since 1973 and has over 140 employees. At present almost half of Nestlé Finland’s sales come from products made at the Turku baby-food plant.

Juha Elonen, Maintenance Technician at this plant, tells us how Omron automation technology is used extensively to monitor and manage the production of around 200 baby food products.

The production is basically divided into four parts: the cooking stage, filling the jars, autoclave and packaging. Nestlé Turku produces approximately 70 million jars of baby food a year. Around 300,000 jars roll off the line each day. There are three shifts five days a week. Reaching these sorts of production levels means that the production process must run seam-lessly from the cooking stage right up to the packaging process. “We use Omron PLCs to take care of all the production automation from start to finish, so they play a key role in our processes!” Juha Elonen said.

Omron automation technology has been used in Turku since 1987, and over the years it has been applied to more areas. Juha Elonen: “We started to use Omron products because they suit our needs precisely. If only other technologies were as advanced as Omron’s automation technology, we would be able to further increase production levels!” Omron PLCs, programmable terminals and inverters control the process at all stages. “We use industrial automation products due mainly to their performance and trouble-free integration. The ease with which they can be integrated is one of the key reasons for using them.

When an Omron product is installed, you can be sure it will work.”To maintain the very high standards of quality control at the Turku plant they are currently introducing a data acquisition system to provide valuable information on all stages of the food manufacturing process. Omron SCADA software will also be used to retrieve this information. This new data acquisition system will play a very important part in quality monitoring.