Chobani Uses the Latest Control and Automation Technology

Chobani is a fast growing, dynamic yogurt company that was founded in the United States, with the belief that people have great taste but needed great options. With a mission to make high-quality, great tasting yogurt available to the masses, Chobani decided to spread its wings to Australia.

Since purchasing a local Victorian dairy company in 2011, Chobani also invested in a new greenfield facility to manufacture their yogurt locally alongside the existing manufacturing plant.

With a strong focus on automation, Chobani called on Metromotion Controls, a leading systems integrator specialising in control and automation systems, to facilitate the design, management and implementation of the new $30 million facility.

In addition to the new manufacturing plant, Metromotion was also commissioned to implement Chobani standards to automate the existing site. The task at hand was to use the latest technologies from Rockwell Automation to automate both new and existing processes at the plants.

Yogurt Production Made Easy

With increasing demand for Chobani yogurt around the world, meeting global supply agreements was a key priority for the company, as failure to do so would result in significant penalties being enforced.

As such, Metromotion Controls were required to meet strict project timelines so the plant could be up and running quickly and effectively.

Chobani has a strong focus on automation and at the time of building the factory required ‘on the ground’ automation and electrical resources from Metromotion Controls.

This work involved facilitating the site power upgrade, building services and process power distribution, factory wide automation integration including process, packaging and site services and commissioning and ongoing support both on site and remotely.

“The cooperation between Rockwell Automation, NHP, Metromotion and Chobani has worked really well and this good working relationship has helped everything to flow smoothly,” he said.

Driving Production Efficiencies

The yogurt production process is fully automated using the latest control and automation technologies from Rockwell Automation. Ethernet/IP™ is used as the communications protocol with all devices connected via the one network.

The architecture at the plant has been designed so that five independent ControlLogix® controllers are used for a specific process role such as raw milk processing, pasteurising, cleaning in place (CIP), fermentation and filling.

Each part of the process is further broken down into modular skids.  A control panel with FLEX™ I/O communicates the process information back to the ControlLogix controller over Ethernet. This provides the capability for remote access diagnostics of equipment easily over the Ethernet network.

The new manufacturing plant meets all of Chobani’s manufacturing requirements and is achieving operational efficiencies. As the company’s product range grows Metromotion Controls has been instrumental in providing automation and process control solutions to meet these changing requirements.

“Chobani is undergoing new product development work which need new controls and new processes which has been a key focus for us as well maintaining the plant,” said Sprigg.

Online Tools Reduce Engineering Time

As Chobani continues to automate both new and existing processes at the plant, reducing engineering time is imperative. The Rockwell Automation products and services help to make commissioning straightforward and in most cases seamless.

“Commissioning new equipment and facilitating changeover of existing equipment has been really trouble free which has saved a significant amount of engineering time,” said Peter Benifer, account manager at NHP.

Minimising downtime is also of critical importance to Chobani because yogurt manufacturing is a continuous process and if the process was to be affected by an unplanned downtime, the whole production process would halt, the plant would need to be cleaned and then restarted.

The Rockwell Automation solution provides a web interface with diagnostics, which allows operators remote access to the system. This makes it easy to find diagnostic information and identify things that may need attention.

“The biggest help to Chobani to reduce downtime during the infancy of the plant was the ability for us to quickly gain remote access to any device and find detailed information fast which in turn allowed us to reduce downtime,” said Sprigg.

Spares, Service and Support at Hand

To help keep yogurt production flowing, Chobani has a comprehensive services agreement in place with Rockwell Automation and NHP that is designed to minimise downtime and maximise reliability through effective asset management.

In addition to this Assurance Agreement, Chobani also has a Parts Management Agreement which provides spare parts onsite so that the plant can be up and running again in the event of unscheduled downtime.

Chobani Crafts Real Yogurt

In the words of Hamdi Ulukaya, founder and ceo of Chobani, “When it’s authentic, when it’s real, you don’t have to say too much about it.”

The worldwide demand for Chobani yogurt speaks for itself and now thanks to the new state-of-the art manufacturing plant, the company can meet their mission to make high quality, great tasting yogurt available to the masses in Australia and around the world.

“We have developed a relationship with both Rockwell Automation and NHP based on the in depth understanding of the needs of the plant, our plant primarily being a facility that uses a ‘through process’ as opposed to a ‘batching process’ and this presents some challenges in relation to response time when issues arise that could potentially shut down a production line. We are extremely happy with the way that Merome Dean, services solutions architect at Rockwell Automation supports us in this regard,” said Roger Forster, reliability manager, Chobani.

Company Background

Rockwell Automation Australia and Rockwell Automation New Zealand are subsidiaries of Rockwell Automation, Inc.—a leading global provider of industrial automation and information solutions that helps manufacturers achieve a competitive advantage in their businesses.

The company brings together leading global brands in industrial automation which include Allen-Bradley® controls and services and Rockwell Software® factory management software. Its broad product mix includes control logic systems, sensors, human-machine interfaces, drive controllers, power devices, and software.

Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE:ROK), the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and information, makes its customers more productive and the world more sustainable. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., Rockwell Automation employs approximately 22,000 people serving customers in more than 80 countries.

Allen-Bradley, ControlLogix, FLEX I/O, PowerFlex and Rockwell Software are trademarks of Rockwell Automation, Inc.

EtherNet/IP is a trademark of ODVA, Inc.