Inductive Automation selected the recipients of its Ignition Firebrand Awards for 2018, which were presented at the recent Ignition Community Conference (ICC) in September, 2018. Several entries included food applications.

The Ignition Firebrand Awards recognize system integrators and industrial organizations that use the Ignition software platform to create innovative new projects. Ignition is an industrial application platform with tools for the rapid development of solutions in HMI, SCADA, manufacturing execution systems (MES) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Ignition is used in several industries (including food and beverage) in more than 100 countries.

The Ignition Firebrand awards are presented every year at ICC, and the award-winning projects are selected from the ICC Discover Gallery, which features 15 Ignition projects submitted by integrators and industrial organizations.

“Once again, we had a lot of variety with the Firebrand Award winners this year,” says Don Pearson, Inductive Automation chief strategy officer. “Many industries were represented—automotive, oil and gas, food and beverage, water/wastewater, and more. It was great to see quality projects in all kinds of settings.”

Some of the winners and finalists related to food, beverage and water treatment include the following:

• (Winner) ECS Solutions (Evansville, Ind.) and Blentech Corporation (Santa Rosa, Calif.) partnered on a project that brought a unified platform to JTM Food Group’s new state-of-the-art plant in Harrison, Ohio. The result was a SCADA system that included the full spectrum of process automation. The Ignition application includes material management, formulation control, batch processing, and process control. See the video here.
• (Winner) Open Automation SRL (Santa Fe, Argentina) improved operations for a Cargill-owned animal nutrition plant. The project used Ignition to increase efficiency, productivity, and traceability without increasing labor. Greater access to data, less paper, and improved product quality were just a few of the benefits. See the video here.
• (Winner) Tamaki Control (Auckland, New Zealand) created a comprehensive clean-in-place scheduling system for the largest yogurt-manufacturing facility in the world: the Chobani plant in Twin Falls, Idaho. The solution increased visualization and made it much easier for operators to share information. It can also be leveraged for other uses at Chobani plants. See the video here.
• (Finalist) Automation Solutions Ecuador created a SCADA system for controlling, visualizing and data acquisition for an automatic batch system, joining three areas of the process: nutrition, production and operation for Grupo Oro, a commercial egg producer. The objectives of the project were to reduce production time, production cost and waste or raw material—improving the product quality and quantity. The completed system allows the staff to know the quantity of raw material that’s been used. Product quality was improved from the first day the system was implemented. For more information, visit the project page and watch the video here.
• (Finalist) Crafted by ESM Australia, an application for YourCoffee was created to connect to Shopify’s ecommerce platform to the factory floor—to include the management of storage and handling and roasting coffee beans. More specifically, this project connected Shopify’s e-commerce storefront ordering process directly to YourCoffee’s production floor. Using Ignition SCADA with web services APIs and Beckhoff PAC-based factory automation platform, ESM Australia delivered YourCoffee the Industry 4.0 tools to connect, evaluate, structure, and control information and physical processes — enabling it to achieve highly dynamic production goals, without limits. For more information, go to the project page and watch the video here.
• (Winner) Brown Engineers (Little Rock, Ark.) took a unique approach to improving the filter backwash process for a water treatment plant at the City of Hot Springs. Brown used the Ignition SCADA platform to dramatically improve the automatic backwash, conserve water, improve water quality, and initiate collection of filter data needed to extend regulatory run-time limits. See the video here.

About Inductive Automation

Inductive Automation allows users to create industrial software that empowers organizations to turn ideas into reality by removing technological and economic obstacles. By cross-pollinating IT with SCADA technologies, Inductive Automation created Ignition software, a universal industrial application platform with unlimited potential. For more information, visit inductiveautomation.com.