Industries · Food and beverage
Automation and modernization for food, beverage and CPG plants
Independent food and beverage automation consulting for plants that cannot stop for long: modernize the controls, stabilize the OEM lines and get data you can trust, inside the shutdown windows you actually have.
Food and beverage plants share problems that a generic automation firm underestimates. Lines are assembled from several OEMs on different platforms, washdown punishes hardware, changeovers happen several times a week and the plant runs around the clock. Joltek works on the manufacturer's side of those problems, independent of any vendor or integrator.
Why it is different
What makes food plant automation harder
The constraints below shape every project we plan in this sector, from a single PLC swap to a plant program.
Sanitation and washdown
Enclosures, sensors, cabling and wiring practices have to survive daily washdown. Hardware that works in a dry discrete plant fails here, and a failed panel is a food safety event as well as a stop.
Allergen and product changeovers
Recipes, setpoints and cleaning verification change several times a week. Changeover time is capacity, and changeover errors are recalls.
High speed packaging
Fillers, cartoners and palletizers run at rates where a few seconds of recovery per fault becomes hours of lost output each month.
Lines built by many OEMs
A typical line mixes machines from several OEMs on different control platforms, often without source code. Integration is where the line loses efficiency.
Short shutdown windows
Plants that run around the clock get a few planned shutdowns a year. Every migration and upgrade has to fit inside one, with a rollback.
Traceability you can prove
The FDA food traceability rule under FSMA section 204 expects lot level records at each critical tracking event. That is a controls and data problem, not only a quality one.
What we do here
The five engagements we see most
Each links to the service page with the approach, the deliverables and the questions buyers ask.
Plant systems assessment
Inventory the controllers, HMIs, drives, networks and software on every line, rate the obsolescence and production risk, and turn it into a prioritized list your capital plan can use.
PLC migration
Move SLC 500, PLC-5 and S7-300 lines to a supportable platform inside the shutdown windows you actually have, with a real dollar range up front.
OEM line stabilization
Take technical ownership of a line where OEM machines do not talk to each other, the code is missing and the integrator has moved on.
Downtime and OEE
Find the controls-caused stops behind the OEE number, fix the ones that pay, and put in the data and routines that keep the gain.
Traceability and MES
Choose and govern the MES, historian and data model that give you lot genealogy and the records traceability rules expect, without buying more system than the plant needs.
Background
Years inside food and CPG plants
Joltek is led by Vladimir Romanov, an electrical engineer with an MBA from McGill. Before founding Joltek he delivered capital projects at Procter & Gamble, led maintenance and operations at Kraft Heinz and ran a greenfield expansion at Post Holdings. His plant years include nearly three in a peanut butter facility. The work is planned by someone who has run these lines, not only designed them.
Questions
Food and beverage questions, answered
Do you only work with food and beverage plants?
No. Food, beverage and consumer packaged goods are our core sectors and where most of our experience sits, but the same work applies to general discrete and process manufacturing.
Can you work on lines with equipment from several OEMs?
Yes. Mixed OEM lines are the normal case in food and beverage. We work across Rockwell, Siemens, Omron and other platforms and take technical ownership of how the machines work together, including when source code is missing.
How do you handle sanitation and washdown requirements on controls work?
They are part of the design review from the start: enclosure ratings, cable and sensor selection, wiring and mounting practices, and access for cleaning. We also check the work against your site sanitation standards before anything is installed.
Can a migration fit inside our planned shutdown?
Usually, if it is planned for it. We size the cutover to the window you have, stage the work across shutdowns when it does not fit in one, and always keep a tested rollback.
Do you help with FSMA 204 food traceability?
We help with the systems side: capturing lot and batch data at the right points on the line, connecting it through SCADA, historian or MES, and making the records retrievable. Your food safety and quality team owns the compliance program; we make sure the plant systems can support it.
Where are you based, and do you travel to US plants?
We are based in Laval, Québec, near Montréal, and work with plants across Canada and the United States.
Related reading: digital maturity assessment for food and beverage plants and MES, traceability and compliance.
Have a project that needs technical ownership?
Send us the situation. If it is not something we should take on, we will say so.