As the most robotic meat processing plant in Russia works. Report of TAdviser

The robotic plant on production of raw smoked sausages of the Cherkizovo group in Kashira was brought into commercial operation in the middle of May, 2018. Presence of people on production at this plant is minimized. Cherkizovo said that for launch the plant with such level of automation in their segment - only in Russia and even in the whole Europe.

As envisioned by the company, with an exit at full capacity, making up to 100 tons of products a day, this industrial complex should provide more than 30% of all raw smoked sausages of the Russian production.

The robotic plant is the first stage of creation of a complex of the enterprises of the meat-processing industry in Kashira. At the second stage in 2021 it is going to start the production plant of meat semi-finished products, ready to the use, and in 2022 - the distribution center with the cooled warehouses and the line of cutting and packaging of sausages.

Briefly about the project

• Beginning of project 2016, shipment start June, 2018.
• Monoproduktovyyzavod (smoked sausage), 80 tons/days
• Investments ~ 7 billion rubles.
• The plant robot – participation of the person in process is reduced to a minimum. Verkhneurovnevo: in production and shipment of people participates in acceptance of raw materials and materials, collecting of the machine for shipment to the client.
• Several levels and options of integration of the equipment from different producers: mechanical, electric, SCADA 2SCADA, SCADA 2 MES.
• ERP and MES a circuit on the platform SAP S/4HANA.

2018

As the robotic plant works. Report of TAdviser

In August, 2018 the correspondent of TAdviser visited the new plant "Cherkizovo" in Kashira and got acquainted with production processes of raw smoked sausage. Everything begins with the fact that to the plant there come machines with meat raw materials which are weighed then there is its peretarka in boxes to the RFID tags containing information on these batches of raw materials.

Gate for entrance of machines on the plant territory

Unloading of the truck with raw materials is performed by people, and its peretarka in an internal container is partially executed by people, and partially - is automated, the head of project office of department of IT of Cherkizovo Denis Gorbunov told. On a question of TAdviser why not to automate unloading process, Gorbunov explained that it was economically unprofitable to automate raw materials unloading so far and it is technically impossible.

After unloading raw materials on pipelines come to completely automated warehouse where it not only is stored before hit on production, but also are prepared for technical process: it is homogeneous it is cooled up to the certain temperature.

In corridors of the plant photos of different years from a group photoarchive hang

Information on a compounding and volumes of products which needs to be made today is transferred to an input to a warehouse. Further the software for this compounding itself selects how many meat, how many salted pork fat, spices and other components is necessary for preparation of forcemeat.

Here forcemeat is made and typing of long loafs of sausage is performed

On pipelines raw materials leave a warehouse also to the line of preparation of forcemeat. In the same workshop forcemeat is typed in a cover and hanged out by ranks on frames for the subsequent sending sausage for fermentation and drying.

To fermentation cameras long loafs of sausage are brought by Techno Ferrari robots. There sausage is stored about 4-5 days then the same robots move it to drying cameras where it is 15-20 more days.

Robots with the sausage hung on frames plow open spaces of the plant

At the same time robots do not throw sausage in cameras of drying: they visit her every day to weigh frames and to record changes of weight. Monitoring reduction of weight when drying, it is possible to judge that, how correctly and qualitatively there is a process of "maturing" of sausage.

Information obtained by robots is transferred to a SAP software which manages production processes, and, including on the basis of these data the decision on readiness of sausage is made.

At the "normal" sausage plant the decision on readiness of sausage, as a rule, is accepted on the basis weighing only of one frame: it is considered that other frames on the average weigh as much, Denis Gorbunov says.

After drying robots bring sausage to workshop of packaging where there is products vakuumation, a sticker of thermochecks and labels, laying in a box, palletizing.

The line of packaging is one of the most difficult parts of the plant

On the line of packaging 11 nodes of the equipment from 5 different producers are connected, Denis Gorbunov says. They interact among themselves both at the mechanical level, and at the level of the software.

From this workshop robots loaders deliver sausage to a finished goods warehouse from where then move it to a forwarding zone when there comes the truck to take away ready sausage.

Robots and people

Together with robots at the plant also people work, however their quantity many times is less, than at the plants with the low levels of automation. In total about 170 people from whom about 80 - directly on production work at the plant in Kashira as of the middle of 2018. Loaders, acceptors of raw materials, operators, technologists, quality specialists treat the last.

The technologist and the quality specialist are present at each section of production. Their solutions consistently at each production phase are displayed in a management system of the plant and influence start or on the contrary, blocking of the next stage of production with a defective batch of raw materials.

The target number of the factory state - about 200 people. At the same time, bring assessment into Cherkizovo, at the normal plant of comparable scale about 700 employees would be required.

IT stuffing of management of the plant

Management of the plant is built on the SAP S4/HANA platform. It is submitted by several levels. The first level - a MES system which interacts with SCADA systems (them at plant three) distributes tasks to the equipment and takes away from it data. At this level the partner solution Sabris is used.

The second level - logistics and the production circuit provided by standard modules of SAP of production planning, management of the material flows, sales which are also interacting with MES level via connectors. This circuit is integrated with the module SAP Quality Management for quality control by which all movements of materials are followed.

Production level is very closely integrated to a MES system, Denis Gorbunov notes. All repartitions, all movements are reflected both in MES, and in a production system.

The third level of the SAP platform - finance.

In plans of the plant - to start the module of SAP for management of repairs and service and mobile solutions for engineers, TAdviser of Humpbacks told. The predictive analytics of a condition of equipment should become the next stage.

Start of the plant

In the middle of May, 2018 the Cherkizovo group completed testing and brought into commercial operation the new plant on production of raw smoked sausages in Kashira. The Chief information officer of Cherkizovo Vladislav Belyaev told about it, speaking at the TAdviser SummIT conference on May 30.

Vladislav Belyaev told about the new plant "Cherkizovo"

The plant is expected release up to 100 tons of products a day, however for launch it works not at full capacity. Investments into the project by the time of start made about 7 billion rubles, the company reported earlier.

Feature of the plant is implementation of approach in it "the Industry 4.0". It allowed to get rid of people on production due to integration of robots with the managing systems of the plant, Vladislav Belyaev explained. At such plant people support a production chain as such, but nobody concerns products.

The robotic plant "Cherkizovo" in Kashira. A photo from Vladislav Belyaev's presentation

The deserted production process is organized as follows. Trucks bring raw materials which unload on the plant. At this stage still is there are manual transactions. After that products are located in the automated warehouse which operates with raw materials in special boxes. Further from this warehouse raw materials are automatically unloaded on the line where forcemeat is made and sausage long loafs form. Then they are passed to special robots who hang sausage on frames then other robots carry it on drying cameras.

After sausage "ripened", it is sent to the line of automatic packaging and marking, automatically keeps within boxes as finished goods and gives all the best on a pallet. At this stage there is a handwork again – loading of pallets in the car for shipment from the plant.

Production process with vs technologies "Industries 3.0". "Industries 4.0". A slide from Vladislav Belyaev's presentation

The production chain – from the first to the last truck – integrates the different equipment of different producers. In equipment of the enterprise technologies and the equipment from Italy, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Austria, the Czech Republic, Great Britain and Switzerland are used.

Each stage is controlled the system: ERP MES WMS etc. At this ERP and MES work on different servers with separate databases and different requirements for availability and reliability: to MES these requirements are higher. The MES level interacts online with SCADA and all systems which directly collect information from elements of a production chain.

Build integration of all systems and a production equipment at all production processes was a difficult task, the Chief information officer of Cherkizovo emphasized.

The equipment at the robotic plant. (The photo is Cherkizovo)

In addition to industrial automation the automated system of quality control of products works at the plant.

In Russia in our industry it is the only plant of completely deserted plant automatic machine. In Europe, as far as we know, too there are no such plants still any more, - Vladislav Belyaev noted.

Full automation removed a human factor, the Chief information officer of Cherkizovo tells about advantages of deserted production. It, on the one hand, saved from human errors which arose earlier constantly since transactions and people there is a lot of. The second factor is bio-security: the less people contact to raw materials, to a semi-finished product, the product is more qualitative less and the longer it will remain.

In turn, the general integrated chain of processes allowed to obtain quickly all objective information from all stages. The company in real time can always see what happens to the plant: from operation of machines to macro-level.

2016: Construction start

Construction of completely robotic meat processing plant "Cherkizovo" started in 2016. The director of information technology of Cherkizovo Vladislav Belyaev at the TAdviser IT Retail DAY conference in December, 2016 told about it.

Belyaev noted that there are practically no analogs such plant in the industry. The company studied foreign experience and found only 2-3 plants in Europe coming to the automation level planned in Cherkizovo. Couple of the similar plants are in America, he added.

At the new plant on production of sausage as envisioned by the company people should be present only at the beginning of a chain when it is necessary to unload the truck. Then there are automated warehouses, lines of typing of sausage, a heat chamber, packaging, etc. After that the personnel appear only again when it is necessary to load finished goods into the truck.

In terms of the scope of it is possible to call the plant an average, Vladislav Belyaev specified. On it it was going to involve about eight times less personnel, than at the traditional plant comparable on power, he said.

Vladislav Belyaev notes that he a task of creation of the plant - ambitious and difficult, but is sure that the company will cope with it

The director of information technology of Cherkizovo also told what the company faces, having set for himself such task. One of difficulties he calls integration at the plant different MES and ERP solutions. To manage synchronously a large number of the automated lines, automatic machines, robots – an uncommon task, he noted. By way of illustration Vladislav Belyaev gave a situation which he observed at one of the plants in Spain whose experience was studied in Cherkizovo and where the level of automation is approximate to 70-80%. Because of failure to to the robot, transferring finished goods, the cart did not approach, and products began to fall on a floor.

Creation of the plant affects also a lot of other processes - sales and operations plannings, managements of a warehouse and logistics. Building such plant, it should be entered in the system of all-corporate processes. Interface of the different systems among themselves also is a difficult task which should be engaged.

According to Vladislav Belyaev, creation of the similar plants is a strategic direction in which the company will move further. Further all production of group is going to be rebuilt by the principle of full automation, he told.

The task is really ambitious, really difficult, but we are sure that we will cope with it, and it will be break not only for our industry, it will be interesting to all market, - Belyaev noted.

Cherkizovo calculates that full automation of production will increase company competitiveness because labor productivity will increase, the quality level and, as a result, it should increase a consumer interest to products.