Wake up, smell the coffee

The chances are that the next time you use a bathroom cleaner, air freshener, or washing up liquid, the familiar 'lemon fresh' or 'mountain pine' aroma will have been supplied by courtesy of the Fragrance Division of Bush Boake Allen in Walthamstow, East London.

Put simplistically, BBA is in the business of making and selling 'smells'; but achieving the right smell, consistently, for a particular client is a complex process which involves the precise blending of dozens of different chemicals which, if not completed consistently, can carry severe financial penalties.

The company has over 10,000 different formulations requiring over 150,000 manual raw material additions per annum during the manufacturing process.

Until recently the quality of the different batches relied totally on the vigilance of the operators with no way of validating batches other than by detailed chemical analysis and olfactory testing.

As operations manager Maurice Pinder explains, "Our old system effectively presented 150,000 separate opportunities for error, especially with our operators selecting and weighing from over 1000 different ingredients, many with similar sounding chemical names.

With such procedures, spoiling of batches was unavoidable and with some materials costing in excess of œ1000/kg, mistakes were extremely costly.

The company was also noticing that customers were becoming more discerning and quality conscious.

Whereas in the past, they would accept products if they had the right odour, many were now carrying out in-house analysis to ensure that all batches had the correct chemical composition.

This left BBA with a difficult dilemma.

How could they introduce a suitable quality control system into their highly manual operation, which did not impact on productivity, had the minimum of disruption and was able to give an acceptable return on their investment.

Initially they considered the proprietary, industry standard, manufacturing and management software systems that were available.

However, after initial discussions, it soon became apparent that the software suppliers had no appreciation or understanding of the complexities or functionality of the critical weighing processes involved.

This would mean BBA having to work with two different types of supplier and full system integration would be almost impossible to achieve.

During this stage, BBA was talking with specialist weighing company Marco Weighing Systems regarding scales for another part of the plant and the subject of updating the compounding department came up in discussions.

Marco Weighing Systems is a small, dynamic company which has built an enviable reputation designing and supplying bespoke weighing and control solutions for industry.

Their success is based on a remarkably simple approach.

They spend as much time as necessary discussing the requirements with the customer's key personnel - from operators on the shop floor through to senior management.

All their systems are based on a modular concept and Marco is adamant that it will not cut corners which may jeopardise the functionality and reliability of a particular system, The original brief from BBA highlighted the key criteria for the new system which should include: improved batch accuracy and repeatability; reduction in paper work system; full batch, ingredient and lot traceability; eventual integration with its new MRP system; de-skilled operator function; and reduction or elimination in spoilt batches.

BBA also needed to retain the flexibility of the mobile weighing operations.

There is no doubt that this represented a major challenge for Marco but technical director Murray Hilborne was 100% confident that they could satisfy the requirements as well as providing other tangible benefits.

His enthusiasm and dedication is evident throughout the company and after one meeting with Marco, BBA realised that an automated system could be achieved within the budget restraints. The BBA system is based around Marco's DataMaster hardware and Trac-IT software.

The existing scales have been replaced with 11 stainless steel PC-based DataMaster workstations.

Six of these are of a bespoke design based around input from the BBA operators.

There are three bulk addition workstations and two fully mobile twin scale pallet truck systems, designed especially for this application.

Given the complexity of the routing, all the workstations are connected via industrial specification RF wireless LAN which keeps wiring to a minimum.

The mobile stations are fully independent and use the trucks' power supplies for the scales.

The total system is aimed at providing full control and traceability at every stage ensuring that the correct ingredient is selected and the correct amount added for each recipe step.

Operators can only proceed if these conditions are met.

Although the original brief included integration of the weighing system with BBA's mainframe system, the company was reluctant to do this from the outset, wanting to validate the weighing system first.

However, Marco had 100% confidence that this could be achieved without any hiccup and waiting would only result in lost production.

Although there was some scepticism from BBA, Marco's confidence was vindicated and the fully integrated system worked from the outset.

The production supervisor's workstation acts as the Editor-Control module which communicates directly with the mainframe system and the other workstations.

The design of the system allows the planner, quality manager and production manager to access the system via PCs on the company network.

Marco can access the program from its support centre via modem link to carry out changes or maintenance.

Key component redundancy ensures that any breakdowns do not affect normal productivity.

The scheduled work plan is downloaded automatically from the AS400 and the batches filtered to ensure the correct permissions are granted.

These are then forwarded to the relevant workstations, depending on the materials and weight requirements to complete the batch. Operators select the job they wish to complete and are prompted for the first ingredient.

They now confirm the correct raw material selection via bar code scanning thus ensuring that the correct batch/lot has been selected and recorded.

All the scanners incorporate RF wireless technology to ensure the operators can easily locate the bar codes on the bulk containers without the added constraints of a cable.

Although the workstations are fully digital, operators also have an analogue bar graph which indicates weight change.

It has been shown that this is a highly effective method for displaying and controlling operator initiated filling processes.

Weights below the target are shown as amber, changing to green in the acceptance zone.

If the operator allows too much product to be poured, the graph goes red and an out of tolerance message is shown, preventing the operator proceeding further.

However, if too much of a raw material has been added, under supervisory control, the batch can be automatically re-sized, all target weights are recalculated without affecting batch composition.

In practice, Marco have found that operators rapidly 'tune in' to such displays and stop adding the raw material nearer to the minimum tolerance than the maximum.

The comprehensive display at each station shows all manufacturing instructions together with any pre and post weighing prompts that may be appropriate including relevant health and safety instructions and general product information. The final blend for a particular fragrance can be made up of several individual smaller batches and mixed in one of the larger fixed tanks.

The new system scans and logs the collected batches in the assembly area and only allows final mixing when all have been assembled.

A batch vessel cannot be used for another job until confirmed as discharged into the large mixing tank.

This tank in turn cannot be loaded with the next job until Quality Control has passed the batch for 'filling out'.

The new system also gives total control over the vessel cleaning routines to ensure that no cross- contamination can affect product quality.

There can often be scepticism and reluctance from operators to accept new systems.

Marco ensured that full training was given and within only an hour of installation, operators were conversant with the new equipment and carrying out batch manufacture.

In fact BBA was quite prepared to accept a reduction in productivity in the first month following commissioning.

In the event, the full system integrated and functioned so well that productivity was unaffected with the added bonus of not needing to re-make rejected batches.

As Maurice Pinder concludes, "We were initially a little sceptical of the major culture change proposed by Marco but in the event we had nothing to worry about.

Marco's professional and dedicated approach matched all of their claims and their attention to detail has given us a world beating system.

Our cumbersome paper work system has been banished for good and stock accuracy has become a welcome by-product of the improved control over the entire blending operation.

The comprehensive system carries out ' over the shoulder' checks for the operators without them feeling under scrutiny".

The system at BBA illustrates how a consolidated and pragmatic approach to an apparent complex problem provides extended benefits for the user.

By understanding precise customer needs, Marco has delivered a fully integrated weighing and control system, which is simple to operate yet highly reliable and accurate.