36 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk June/July 2024 Special Focus Food & Beverage Jason Chester, Director of Global Channel Programmes, InfinityQS, discusses 4 reasons why food and beverage processors should consider moving quality to the cloud. Manufacturing has a history of moving at a glacial pace when adopting new technology such as cloud-based solutions, but cloud is not new anymore. In recent years, cloud computing and SaaS (Software-as-aService) have begun to dominate. More and more manufacturers are looking to switch their quality management to a cloud-based quality system. Simply, in today’s ever-changing and volatile manufacturing climate, the cost advantages, power, and versatility of the cloud have become essential to survival. Quality and safety Many food and beverage manufacturers are searching for new strategies and tools to help address their quality and safety challenges. Fortunately, the most powerful and valuable resource is already at their disposal - data. Quality data produced on the plant floor enables manufacturers to keep products and processes within specifcation, constantly producing high-quality products while maximising yield and minimising waste. However, this is only possible when that data is accessible and actionable. Regrettably, a lot of food and beverage manufacturers keep their quality data protected away in paper checklists, spreadsheets, or siloed databases — leaving all those cherished insights unused. Investing in quality data management now will allow manufacturers to reap future rewards The cloud upends how manufacturers can collect, store, analyse and utilise quality data. With cloud-based quality management software, data from all processes, lines, and sites — and even data from suppliers — are unified in a centralised repository. The data and subsequent analyses become rapidly available and effortlessly consumable. By bringing quality data online, manufacturers gain many valuable benefits. The following advantages help to drive higher levels of quality, safety and sustainability across processes and supply chains: 1. Collection and analysis of data from production processes in real-time Manufacturing is a continuous and real-time activity. Collecting data in batches, and performing analysis or reporting on that data in batches (if it is even at all) inevitably means that quality issues and performance bottlenecks can potentially go unchecked for some considerable time. However, when data is collected and analysed in real-time, then trends or problems can be detected before they manifest themselves into significant events. When a quality, safety or performance issue is detected, alerts can be immediately issued to the appropriate operators or quality personnel. They can adjust or make corrections early on, ensuring products and processes are continually optimised. This proactive approach is the key to reducing waste, protecting profits, and keeping defective products from ever making it out the door. Cloud-based quality management software offers the visibility process manufacturers need to break out of firefighting mode. Rather than reacting to one problem after another, they can work on preventing problems from getting out of hand or even happening in the first place. And because all that information is instantly available via the cloud, plant leaders and quality managers can stay on top of what is happening without being physically present on the plant floor. Whether they are in a back office, on the road or otherwise working remotely, they have all the information needed to ensure operations run smoothly. 2. Utilising advanced analysis tools With paper-based systems — or even legacy on-site software — quality data is often siloed between disparate production sites across an enterprise. What is more, data is often not standardised across those sites or systems. This makes comparative analysis nearly impossible and fraught with difficulty. But that all changes when data from every The power of cloud-based quality management
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