Agropur Gains 30 Hours of Productivity Per Week

Agropur Cooperative operates 37 facilities across North America, processing over 1.5 billion gallons of milk annually into cheese, butter, yogurt, and ice cream — generating $5.9 billion in sales. At its largest plant in Don Mills, Ontario, which ships enough dairy product to fill 30 trucks daily, operational data was entirely manual. Operators and managers required 2,500 hours per year of post-shift data entry to satisfy reporting demands. Automation hardware was nearing end-of-life, system backups consumed an additional 48 hours annually, and version control across seven maintenance laptops was unreliable. Without a centralized data platform, continuous improvement initiatives were reactive rather than planned.

Agropur partnered with Rockwell Automation and systems integrator Grantek Systems Integration to deploy an integrated control and manufacturing intelligence platform across the Don Mills facility. The foundation consisted of Allen-Bradley ControlLogix controllers, PowerFlex drives, and PanelView HMIs running FactoryTalk View on a virtualized server. On top of this, three FactoryTalk software layers were deployed: FactoryTalk Metrics for OEE data collection and machine performance benchmarking; FactoryTalk AssetCentre for centralized automation asset management, version control, and backup — consolidating seven laptops into one; and FactoryTalk VantagePoint to aggregate data from disparate systems into automated dashboards and per-shift email reports, giving supervisors real-time visibility without burdening operators.

The platform eliminated 2,500 hours per year of manual data collection and recovered 48 hours per year previously lost to system backups and version control. Automated scheduling analysis revealed over 33 hours of annual production downtime caused by uncoordinated lunch breaks and meetings — time that was recovered through schedule adjustments without capital investment. Additional outcomes included:

• 30% reduction in lubricant consumption after benchmark reporting enabled data-driven process decisions
• 25% efficiency gain on a single filler line within three months of visibility improvements
• Shift supervisors able to monitor production status independently via automated email reports, reducing operator interruptions

• Eliminating manual data collection pays dividends beyond time savings — it shifts the workforce from data entry to data-driven decision-making.
• Standardizing on a single integrated platform (controls + OEE + asset management) is more valuable than point solutions; the layers reinforce each other.
• Version control and asset management should be part of any modernization project from day one — uncontrolled backups are an invisible operational risk.
• Benchmark reporting often reveals process improvements that eliminate the need for capital equipment purchases.
• In food and beverage, operational intelligence from shift-level reporting can surface scheduling inefficiencies that traditional audits miss.