Predictive maintenance delivers savings for soft drink maker

Unplanned downtime remains one of the biggest hidden costs in food, beverage, dairy, pharma and other hygienic industries. Yet many manufacturers still rely on scheduled inspections or react only when equipment failure occurs.

A case study from one of the UK’s largest soft drink manufacturers, Britvic, demonstrates how AI-powered and industry intelligent condition monitoring can help production teams detect failures before they happen, preventing lost production, reducing resource waste and improving operational efficiency.

Using Alfa Laval’s condition monitoring solution, the company identified an imminent pump issue that otherwise would have gone unnoticed until failure occurred. Acting on a single notification, the maintenance team repaired the defect pump during a planned production stop and avoided six hours of unplanned downtime as well as 288,000 bottles of lost product and 2000 L of cleaning water.

“Just this one notification paid for our entire investment in the condition monitoring solution”, said Chris Heslop, Engineering Specialist at Britvic’s facility in Rugby, UK.

At Britvic’s facility, hundreds of pumps support round-the-clock production across multiple beverage lines. Any unexpected pump failure can lead to costly interruptions, loss of product and additional cleaning cycles.

The CM sensors were installed on Britvic’s 107 LKH pumps.

Within months of implementation, the condition monitoring system detected abnormal operation on a critical pump and alerted operators before failure occurred. The maintenance team was then able to complete the repair in just 45 minutes within a planned production stop, avoiding six hours of unplanned downtime.

“In today’s manufacturing environment, uptime and sustainability are increasingly linked,” said Torsten Pedersen, Commercial Head Condition Monitoring, Alfa Laval Fluid Handling. “Our customers are looking for solutions that improve productivity and operational efficiency, and this is exactly where condition monitoring creates value.”

Clariot is Alfa Laval’s AI-based condition monitoring solution developed specifically for hygienic process industries. The solution is designed to continuously monitor pumps and other rotating equipment, providing 24/7 analysis, diagnostics and alerts that enable maintenance teams to address issues in time. It combines intelligent sensors, advanced AI-based analytics and secure connectivity in a platform designed to detect issues related to process conditions, installation issues and mechanical wear.

“We firmly believe that condition monitoring and predictive maintenance is becoming standard practice in modern manufacturing,” Pedersen said. “The value is no longer theoretical, and cases like this clearly demonstrate the positive business impact.”

Images: Supplied