July 28, 2016

Mondelēz had successfully launched its revolutionary new Tassimo single-serve hot beverage system in Europe. Wanting to leverage the momentum of the product’s early success, Mondelēz moved quickly to set up manufacturing facilities in Pennsylvania in preparation for a North American launch.

The Opportunity

While North American’s love of European-style coffees seemed to promise a successful launch, European manufacturing technology wouldn’t translate quite so easily. And while the production of the individual beverage disks used in the machine in Europe had gone smoothly, Mondelēz recognized that some key learnings from Europe would allow them to optimize the new manufacturing process in North America.

Mondelēz looked for a partner that could manage the large-scale project, bridge the technology gap, investigate process optimization strategies and ensure a successful manufacturing launch in a fast-paced environment. Grantek had successfully completed a number of large-scale projects for Mondelēz, proving that it could deliver on time and on budget with innovative systems solutions.

The Solution

While the European production line had been state of the art, much of the technology, electrical systems, process controls and safety features needed to be brought in line with North American standards. Grantek investigated the existing European system, wrote a report on the opportunities to further advance efficiency in productivity and maintainability and drove the optimization process. Grantek then wrote the specifications for the various machine vendors to ensure efficiencies were realized and safety and regulated requirements were met.

Grantek managed the entire systems integration for the solution. This included power distribution studies and design, software design, electrical schematics, construction bid packages, vendor selection, safety regulatory compliance, optimization strategies, construction management, equipment procurement, training, commissioning and start-up support. Grantek also linked all of the systems back to the Mondelēz Global MES data collection systems, enabling corporate visibility to real-time manufacturing processes.

Grantek led the commissioning efforts during the start-up of this process and packaging system. Our intimate knowledge and experience were monumental in ensuring the system delivered as promised. Grantek ensured an engineering solution that not only met Mondelēz’s North American requirements, but introduced valuable cost-cutting improvements, and did so under budget and ahead of schedule.