Controls that keep the line running
and the product safe.
Food and beverage manufacturing operates under a unique set of pressures that most industries don't face simultaneously — high-speed production lines that can't afford unplanned stops, sanitation requirements that dictate how equipment is designed and cleaned, regulatory standards that demand traceability from raw ingredient to finished package, and margins thin enough that a 2% improvement in OEE changes the P&L.
We design and deploy control systems for food and beverage manufacturers as a specialized food industry system integrator — from batch processing and continuous production to packaging, palletizing, and warehouse automation. Systems engineered for washdown environments, sanitary design standards (3-A, EHEDG), and the regulatory landscape of FSMA, HACCP, SQF, and BRC compliance — in plants that run 20+ hours a day.
Undocumented PLC logic, decade-old HMIs, and tribal knowledge holding the line together.
- —New SKUs require weeks of PLC code edits
- —Manual CCP and CIP data on paper forms
- —OEE estimated from shift reports, not measured
ISA-88 batch architectures, recipe-driven changeover, and automated traceability from raw ingredient to pallet.
- New SKUs configured through HMI recipe editor
- Automated CCP, CIP, and batch record capture
- Real-time OEE and downtime Pareto by line
The problem with food
and beverage automation.
Food plants run fast and they don't stop easily. When a filling line goes down, product backs up, ingredients expire, and schedules cascade. The control systems running these lines need to be reliable, maintainable, and designed by engineers who understand that a 15-minute unplanned stop during a production run has real cost.
Many food manufacturers are running on control systems designed a decade or more ago. The PLCs work, but the logic is undocumented, the original integrator is gone, and the HMI screens haven't been updated since they were commissioned. The plant has expanded — new lines, new equipment, new products — but the control architecture hasn't scaled with it. Operators rely on tribal knowledge, and maintenance teams troubleshoot by intuition rather than data.
Meanwhile, customers and regulators are demanding more traceability, more data, and more consistency than ever. Retailers require lot-level tracking. FSMA demands preventive controls with documented evidence. And your quality team is still recording CCP data on paper forms.
We build control systems that handle all of it — fast production, sanitary requirements, regulatory traceability, and the operational flexibility to change over between products without reprogramming everything.
Eight capabilities,
engineered for the line.
Structured PLC logic on Allen-Bradley and Siemens platforms for food processing applications. Batch control logic designed per ISA-88 for recipe-driven processes — mixing, blending, cooking, fermentation, and CIP/SIP sequencing. Continuous process control for pasteurization, sterilization, and thermal processing. Code structured for maintainability and designed for the changeover flexibility that multi-product facilities require.
View serviceReal projects,
measurable results.
A batching system that actually scales.
A beverage manufacturer had outgrown their batching system. The original PLC program handled three recipes — now they had forty, and adding a new product required a controls engineer to modify PLC code, which meant scheduling time, testing, and validation for every SKU launch. We rebuilt the batch control system per ISA-88 with a recipe management framework. New products are configured through the HMI recipe editor — no PLC code changes required. Product development can now launch a new SKU in hours instead of weeks, and the operations team manages recipes independently.
Vision that catches what operators can't.
A snack food manufacturer was relying on manual visual inspection for packaging quality — and catching defects after they'd already been packed into cases. Mislabeled products, missing date codes, and seal defects were making it to distribution. We integrated machine vision at three inspection points — post-fill, post-label, and post-seal — with cameras, lighting, and reject systems tied into the line PLC. Defective products are automatically rejected and logged. Defect rate reaching distribution dropped by 95%, and the vision data feeds quality trending dashboards that identify process drift before it becomes a pattern.
OEE that's real, not estimated.
A dairy processor was calculating OEE manually from shift reports filled out by operators — and the numbers varied wildly depending on who was on shift and how they categorized downtime. Management couldn't trust the data enough to make investment decisions. We deployed automated data collection from PLCs across four production lines — capturing runtime, downtime events with reason codes, production counts, and quality holds. A real-time SCADA dashboard shows OEE by line, by shift, and by product, with Pareto analysis of downtime causes. Within 60 days, the team identified that changeover time on one line was 3x the plant average — a problem that had been invisible in the manual data.
The stack we deploy
in food plants.
Allen-Bradley ControlLogix & CompactLogix, Siemens S7-1500 & S7-1200, Beckhoff TwinCAT
Ignition, FactoryTalk SE & Optix, Siemens WinCC, AVEVA
FANUC, ABB, KUKA, Universal Robots
Cognex, Keyence, SICK — integrated into PLC/SCADA architecture
EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, Modbus TCP, OPC UA, MQTT
ISA-88 batch control, ISA-95 enterprise integration
Allen-Bradley Kinetix & PowerFlex, Siemens Sinamics, Beckhoff servo systems
Built for food plants,
not adapted to them.
We design for the environment.
Food plants are wet, hot, cold, dusty, and cleaned with caustic chemicals. We design control systems — panels, enclosures, HMI hardware, and network infrastructure — for the actual environment they'll operate in, not for a climate-controlled server room.
We understand changeover.
Multi-product facilities need control systems that flex. Our batch architectures, recipe management systems, and HMI designs are built for the reality of a plant that runs six products on one line and changes over between them every shift.
We stay until it runs at rate.
Commissioning isn't done when the PLC program compiles. It's done when the line runs at production rate, the operators are comfortable, and the maintenance team knows how to troubleshoot. We stay until that happens.
Straight answers.
Yes. Food plants run 20+ hours a day and we plan every phase — commissioning, controller migrations, HMI replacements, and network upgrades — around scheduled sanitation breaks, weekend shutdowns, and planned maintenance windows. We stay until the line runs at production rate, not until the punchlist looks manageable.
We design batch control per ISA-88 for recipe-driven processes — mixing, blending, cooking, fermentation, and CIP/SIP sequencing. Recipe management is exposed through the HMI so operations can launch and modify SKUs without calling a controls engineer to edit PLC code.
Yes. We integrate machine vision at fill, label, and seal inspection points on lines that were originally designed for manual quality checks — cameras, lighting, reject systems tied into the line PLC, and inspection data logged to the SCADA system for batch traceability and quality trending.
Most food packaging lines mix equipment from different manufacturers. We communicate with each OEM's PLC via the appropriate protocol and normalize the data into a unified SCADA platform — one production view across fillers, labelers, case packers, and palletizers regardless of vintage or vendor.
Yes. CCP data, batch records, and CIP cycle documentation are captured automatically from the control system into the historian and surfaced in the formats your quality and regulatory teams need — not on paper forms that operators fill out during a busy shift.
Allen-Bradley ControlLogix and CompactLogix, Siemens S7-1500 and S7-1200, and Beckhoff TwinCAT for controls. Ignition, FactoryTalk (SE and Optix), Siemens WinCC, and AVEVA for SCADA and HMI. FANUC, ABB, KUKA, and Universal Robots for robotics. We select the platform based on the application and site standards, not personal preference.
Ready to talk about your plant?
Whether it's a batching system, a packaging line, or a full plant control upgrade — tell us about the project and we'll figure out the best way to help.