Advanced Process Control Chats: Food & Beverage Industry
A Conversation with Our Team of Experts
As our Advanced Process Control Chats continue, today we’re talking with Food & Beverage subject matter experts, Lance Rodenfels and Kirk Aubertine. Each with over 25 years of experience in the space, they dive into the importance of active listening and collaboration when working on a project as well as the role they are seeing AI playing for their clients.
Our Interviewees
Lance Rodenfels is the global industrial data science commercial leader for Rockwell Automation’s digital solutions business. During his 26-year career at Rockwell Automation, he has focused on delivering solutions to address business value for clients in the software solution space with a focus in MES, Analytics, Advanced Analytics, and similar solutions. Currently, based in the US, he has had multiple overseas assignments in both Asia Pacific and Europe, along with experience in selling and delivering solutions to a broad range of industries such as Food and Beverage, Cement, and Minerals & Mining, and Consumer, to name a few. Rodenfels has a BS in Electrical Engineering Technology from Purdue University.
Kirk Aubertine is a senior digital solutions consultant. As a digital solution consultant at Rockwell Automation for the past nine years, he leverages his expertise in continuous improvement and delivering productivity for major manufacturing enterprises. With over 25 years of industry experience and a Six Sigma/Lean Master Black Belt certification, he specializes in guiding clients through the refinement of their manufacturing improvement opportunities and the implementation of pragmatic solutions. His role focuses on optimizing operational efficiency and driving tangible benefits for our clientele.
What are the key challenges you typically face in your role providing consultation on digital solutions?
Rockwell Automation offers a wide array of advanced capabilities, the biggest challenge is finding the sweet spot between potential benefits and practical applications.
Our goal is to craft solutions that leverage these advanced technologies while helping the client justify their investment.
What are the most important skills and qualities for success in your role?
Being able to talk about advanced technologies in non-technical terms while tying those conversations to business outcomes that are most concerning to the client is a very important skill. We can proceed with confidence, knowing that we have expert knowledge of the industry and have successfully delivered digital solutions over the last 35 years and will continue to do so in the future.
When you meet with a client, walk us through how you approach a problem.
Our approach begins by examining how the problem affects the clients’ downstream customers. Unmet demand? Quality issues? Cost? For example, we worked with a dairy producer to implement an APC and MPC solution and were able to help them achieve up to a 42% reduction in quality variability, a 6–15% increase in production throughput and 0.1-0.5% yield.
We also engage in active listening as the client articulates their envisioned solution, while sharing our industry perspective and experience to arrive at a potential solution that takes both into account. Collaboratively, we will conduct preliminary estimates of the outcomes and business value for solving that challenge.
- Examine the problem
- Engage in active in lisiting
- Arrive at a solution
- Conduct preliminary estimates
What are some trends you’re seeing in the industry?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has demonstrated significant potential to fundamentally transform manufacturing processes including the food & beverage manufacturing space.
Many of our new clients come to us not with a particular problem but looking for strategic guidance on where to optimally deploy these advanced automation tools within their value chain for the maximum impact.
Other trends include:
- Advanced quality sensing
- Data model standardization
- Track and trace capabilities tailored to client needs
The food and beverage industry has also seen increasing interest in sustainability, particularly in water and energy efficiency. However, sustainability is not as significant a driver as capacity, yield, and volume for clients, so the decision to prioritize sustainability is typically influenced by regional trends and needs.
We often hear from clients that their KPIs are throughput, yield/ recovery, quality and energy reduction. How do you factor those in when you are creating a solution? What else should the client be thinking about?
Our approach is guided by the business value measured with those KPIs. A consideration is not whether Rockwell Automation can address the issue, but rather does it warrant the application of advanced analytics or AI toolsets. The client should evaluate the impact of implementing advanced analytic solutions on their workforce, considering the human aspect of change. Our teams incorporate change management strategies to ensure the solutions are effectively utilized thereby driving maximum value creation.
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