Tom Dufton

Maintenance/Project Manager, Perth County Ingredients

Perth County Ingredients is a supplier of dried egg products to food, beverage and sports nutrition markets in Canada and worldwide. Perth County Ingredients is the only human grade egg spray drying plant in Canada. We are also only one of a few spray drying plants for the pet food market in Canada too.

Supernova Award Category: 
Data to Decisions
The Problem: 

Perth County Ingredients' dried egg processing facility faced significant challenges due to outdated equipment and inefficient maintenance practices. The plant relied entirely on reactive maintenance, causing the team to waste time and resources as they constantly fought fires throughout the day. Additionally, the facility required upgrades to critical equipment such as boilers and chillers, further straining the maintenance department's ability to keep up with the demands of the aging infrastructure. One of the largest issues was only having maintenance support on days shift. We weren’t able to have afternoons and nights due to the minimal amount of production on those off shifts. This then turned into after-hours call-ins for the team. As production was ramping up, we were experiencing more and more issues and call-ins after-hours.

The Solution: 

Perth County Ingredients recognized that the existing building automation system (BAS) alone was insufficient to address the facility's maintenance challenges and identified the need for a more proactive approach. Fiix, a cloud-based, AI-powered computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) by Rockwell Automation, provided the ideal solution to streamline maintenance operations and enable the team to work more efficiently and proactively. Perth County Ingredients also teamed up with Fiix’s integration partner, Majik Systems, to integrate its programmable logic controllers (PLCs) with Fiix for real-time data collection on equipment conditions. The company also implemented Fiix's Asset Risk Predictor for predictive maintenance.

The Results: 

Before Fiix, Perth County Ingredients relied on reactive maintenance, with the team constantly putting out fires and struggling to keep up with day-to-day tasks. Preventive maintenance was scheduled based on old habits and manual inspections consumed hours of the team's time each week.

 

With Fiix, Perth County Ingredients had a significant reduction in reactive maintenance and after-hours call-ins. The maintenance team gained access to work orders, SOPs and BAS system through tablets and the Fiix mobile app, streamlining processes and saving time troubleshooting.

 

This project success led to the implementation of the Fiix CMMS across 7 other facilities and enabled the company to run multiple operations from a single location. This allowed Perth County Ingredients to streamline operations, reduce on-site staff and improve overall efficiency.

 

Integrating Perth County Ingredients’ PLCs with Fiix CMMS enabled the company to collect real-time asset data and enable condition-based maintenance, further reducing breakdowns, and time spent on after-hours calls. This integration allowed them to automate work order creation when asset readings hit certain thresholds, reducing breakdowns. Leveraging this data, Perth County Ingredients implemented Fiix’s Asset Risk Predictor to predict failures. This approach ensured smooth production and enabled data-based decision-making.

Metrics: 

Before implementing Fiix, 100% of Perth County Ingredient’s maintenance work was reactive.

 

After implementing Fiix, Perth County Ingredients’ reactive maintenance decreased by 54% and after-hours call-ins dropped by 47%. The company also saved $40,000 annually, representing a 300% return on investment, by integrating real-time asset condition monitoring for condition-based maintenance.

The Technology: 

Fiix® CMMS by Rockwell Automation

Fiix® Asset Risk Predictor by Rockwell Automation

Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk Historian Server

Rockwell Automation Studio 5000

Disruptive Factor: 

Perth County Ingredients transformed its maintenance approach using steps throughout the maintenance pyramid. From 100% reactive to preventive, from preventive to condition-based, from condition-based to now predictive-based using Fiix’s Asset Risk Predictor. This enabled the maintenance team to preemptively address equipment failures and optimize maintenance schedules, resulting in improved operational reliability and setting a new standard for facility management efficiency.

Shining Moment: 

Achieving a healthy work-life balance has been a significant milestone for us, especially after the initial challenging years that strained on our Maintenance team due to unforeseen equipment failures. We started capturing all of the bad actor assets using Fiix and automating or engineering out the issues. This helped reduce call-ins and show our vision of the plant as we grew. We are proud that we now have a stable work environment and have had no Maintenance turnover in the last 7 years.

About Perth County Ingredients

Perth County Ingredients is a privately held Canadian producer of dried egg products, located in St. Marys, Ontario. Through our advanced facilities, utilizing the latest drying technology and quality systems, we produce dried egg products for the world’s food, beverage and sports nutrition industries.