Manufacturing data system enables 12% increase in efficiency for Scottish bottlers

Broxburn Bottlers, which offers filling services for brands such as Edinburgh Gin, is expanding its data collection with Omron sensors and Factbird gateway units to analyse performance.

Back in 2022, one of the bottling lines at The Edinburgh-based company was operating at an efficiency of 65.8%. An independent consultant recommended Factbird’s manufacturing data system as a way of logging and analysing performance. After a trial and installation of one Omron E3AS sensor and a Factbird DUO Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) unit on each line, the analysis and troubleshooting that resulted led to a 12% efficiency increase to 77.8% on that particular line in the year up to August 2023, says Broxburn. 

Operations director Jonathan Bell calls the change “a step-change in performance”. On the third line, analysed above, short stops of sometimes just a fraction of a second each time were happening regularly, requiring the operator to unjam the corks. 

“If you’ve got a lot of micro-stops where a lot of corks are jamming, but that happened 40 or 50 times every couple of hours, you might miss that data because people remember the big bang where a machine breaks,” he points out. “They don’t get the bigger issues, which accumulate over a day.” 

The outcome is in line with Broxburn’s original objective to “capture actual performance efficiency on an hour-by-hour basis”. The Factbird data can be accessed on any Web browser. 

“The data allowed us to identify that the machine change parts weren’t fit for purpose,” Bell explains. “So it allowed us to invest some CapEx in that area and buy dedicated change parts for all corks, instead of having a common part used for two or three different variants.” 

The system plays a key role in day-to-day operations, too, as senior team leader, production Lisa Napier spells out. “I can see everything that I need to see with Factbird, which is great. I check registered stops, the line efficiency, and batches is also a handy one for me: it helps to see when they’re going to finish. I look at the OEE [Overall Equipment Effectiveness] as well as downtime.” 

According to Michael Arrowsmith, Factbird’s customer success manager, UK & Ireland, the bottler currently has one Omron sensor on each line at the labelling stage, plus a ceiling-mounted DUO IIoT gateway box. “However, there are plans for the future to add sensors at more points on the line: at the casepacker, filler, and so on.” 

Factbird, which has its HQ in Denmark, changed its name from Blackbird in 2023.

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