Anonymous CCB Company

For a large-scale food and beverage bottling operation, energy consumption is one of the highest controllable cost inputs — covering refrigeration, carbonation systems, compressed air, conveyors, and HVAC across continuous production lines. The CCB facility faced persistently high energy spend with no granular visibility into where consumption was occurring or which production conditions were driving inefficiency. Without real-time energy data tied to production output, operators had no way to identify waste, sequence equipment optimally, or respond proactively to demand spikes. The result was inflated utility costs and production throughput constrained by reactive, manual coordination between energy use and line operations.

Rockwell Automation deployed an integrated energy and production optimization solution that connected the facility's existing control infrastructure to a unified monitoring and analytics layer. The system leveraged Rockwell's FactoryTalk platform — likely incorporating FactoryTalk Energy Manager and FactoryTalk Analytics — to capture real-time energy consumption data at the equipment level and correlate it directly with production output metrics. This integration enabled operators to see energy cost per unit produced rather than aggregate utility consumption, shifting decision-making from reactive to data-driven. Variable frequency drives and programmable controllers were used to dynamically adjust motor speeds and equipment load profiles based on production demand, reducing unnecessary energy draw during lower-throughput periods. The solution was integrated with existing automation systems rather than replacing them, minimizing deployment disruption.

The implementation delivered measurable gains across both energy efficiency and production output:

• 6% reduction in energy consumption across facility operations, translating directly to lower utility costs at scale
• 8% increase in production output, achieved without additional capital equipment by optimizing existing line scheduling and equipment utilization

Beyond the headline numbers, aligning energy monitoring with production data gave operations teams a new lever for continuous improvement — decisions previously made on intuition could be validated against real cost-per-unit figures. The simultaneous improvement in both dimensions indicates the gains came from better coordination, not trade-offs between efficiency and throughput.

• Energy visibility at the equipment level is the prerequisite — facility-wide utility bills mask where waste actually occurs; connecting energy data to individual machines unlocks actionable savings.
• Integrate with existing control infrastructure first — solutions that layer analytics onto current PLCs and drives reduce deployment risk and accelerate time to value in food and beverage environments.
• Correlate energy to output, not just consumption — tracking energy cost per unit produced aligns operations teams around efficiency gains that have direct P&L impact.
• Production and energy optimization are not separate workstreams — the 8% throughput gain came alongside the energy reduction, demonstrating that scheduling and load optimization benefits both simultaneously.
• Enterprise-scale facilities should prioritize vendors with end-to-end control and analytics stacks to avoid integration gaps between energy monitoring and production execution systems.