April 2, 2025

Overview
A multinational food & beverage manufacturer in Illinois reached out to Grantek for help with a staffing problem. The manufacturer was having difficulty supporting an automation system during their night shift. The inability to source a permanent staff member on the production line during the night shift was negatively impacting their productivity. The lack of this staff member was resulting in major issues that could lead to downtime remaining unresolved until an appropriate staff member working the day shift arrived for work at the facility hours later. The manufacturer realized this situation was not sustainable, and beyond delaying the resolution of any issues happening during the night shift, it also could create extended downtime events that could spill into the day shift, when the appropriate staff member was present and able remedy the problem. The manufacturer had worked with Grantek before at another one of their facilities, they were impressed with that earlier work and reached out to Grantek looking for a similar level of help with this new staffing problem.

Challenges
To start the engagement, Grantek and the manufacturer came together for a road-mapping session. This helped confirm the situation, and fully understand the universe of possible solutions. Initially, remote support was considered, but since not all systems are networked and remotely accessible, onsite embedded support was chosen. Onsite embedded support has many advantages, as Grantek could work alongside the maintenance team in troubleshooting. Another advantage of onsite embedded support is there would be less “broken telephone” when the manufacturer would use electronic voice or data communication to describe the issue with report support. Onsite embedded support would allow Grantek to be onsite to see the issues firsthand, then directly work on solving the issue. Onsite embedded support also let Grantek train the maintenance team at the facility on troubleshooting their systems. This training was an important benefit to the manufacturer.

Grantek noticed when there was an issue the entire distribution area conveyors stopped, causing all palletizer lines to go down. Troubleshooting this issue led Grantek to uncover a panel that had lost power which caused communications to stop between systems and lead to this downtime. By uncovering this, Grantek was able to work with electricians on a permanent fix that restored power to the panel, communications were restored and the conveyors and palletizer lines could be restarted. Grantek also realized a mixer had reoccurring safety alarms, which was disrupting operations. Troubleshooting by Grantek revealed that a faulty door sensor was causing these false alarms. Once the sensor was replaced, the mixer process could be brought back into operation without further issues. Lasty, during this work, Grantek found that a case packer was faulting with a servo motor alarm. Troubleshooting revealed that the machine was exceeding a velocity tolerance, to remedy this Grantek adjusted the servo parameters, and eliminated the fault, allowing continued monitoring of the line.

Solutions
Grantek’s onsite embedded support solution was a great help to the manufacturer. Grantek was initially onsite for 12 weeks, which was then extended for an additional 12 weeks (24 weeks total of onsite embedded support). The manufacturer is now looking to extend this further. Overall, the manufacturer was happy with the support and the fundamental issues that were uncovered and solved by Grantek. Grantek’s onsite embedded support has spurred discussions for how similar arrangements could be helpful at other North American facilities operated by the manufacturer.