Standfirst: Migration to modern control systems technology proved to be real refresher for Coca-Cola Vietnam. Bob Gill reports from Ho Chi Minh City.

A vitamin-packed energy drink that has an exciting and refreshing taste with a carbonated, sweet flavor that appeals to the Vietnamese palate. So goes the description of Samurai, the drink that targets hard-working Vietnamese adults looking for an energy boost.

Samurai is just one of the drinks produced by Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam Limited (CCBVL), which since 2004 has been a business unit of South African bottler Coca-Cola Sabco. While Samurai is only available in selected Southeast Asia countries, other beverages produced by Coca Cola in Vietnam include familiar names like Coke (of course), Fanta, Sprite, and Schweppes Soda and Tonic.

It was on a visit to Vietnam in 2009, and no doubt with an eye on the potential of this youthful, populous and rapidly developing nation, that Coca-Cola president and CEO Muhtar Kent announced a three-year, US$200 million investment to boost production capacity and ramp up marketing activities.

"The total market for non-alcoholic beverages in Vietnam is growing at a healthy rate of about 15 percent. But we are still at the beginning of our journey – the per capita consumption in the country is among the lowest in the world. But I believe with our new investment, new products, new packages, and new marketing strategies, Vietnam will become one of our top markets in the next decade," he explained when interviewed by local media

Coca-Cola actually started operations in Vietnam back in 1994, not long after normalization of relations between the US and its former foe. Today, with plants in Hanoi in the north, Da Nang in the center, and Ho Chi Minh City in the south, the company employees more than 1,200 staff, operates can, glass-bottle and PET-bottle production lines, and has an annual output in excess of 18 million cases of the thirst-quenching drinks.

The Ho Chi Minh City bottling plant is one of three Coca-Cola has in the country, and with a US$200 million investment announced in 2009, the company has high hopes for the Vietnam market.

Capacity challenge
"Since 2009 our growth has been very fast," Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diem, country supply chain manager, Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam, tells Control Engineering Asia at the company's plant in Thu Dic District, Ho Chi Minh City. "In fact, with 35 percent annual sales growth, it has been a struggle for the factories to meet the demand."

Diem's role includes responsibility for manufacturing and logistics at all three Coca Cola facilities in Vietnam, and she does not hesitate when quizzed on what is her biggest issue: "Capacity. Even with a high efficiency level of 70 percent, it is difficult to have sufficient output. And so the challenge for manufacturing is to constantly look at ways at maximizing production."

In both the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City plants there were specific issues with the RGB (returnable glass bottle) lines in that the production rate specified by the respective suppliers, Krones and KHS, could not be met. Diem cites one reason as being "non synchronization" – in that the various line segments like bottle washer and filler were not connected in control terms and so did not "talk to each other". This naturally led to line issues such as bottlenecks and delays.

Another problem cited by Tran Huu Thoi, responsible for plant asset management at Ho Chi Minh City, was maintenance issues related to the Siemens S5 PLC, which had been the control system supplied along with the mechanical equipment by the RGB line manufacturer. Although innovative at its time, the S5 is considered very much 1980s' technology in PLC terms.

"Ever since the end-of-life for this PLC, it became increasingly difficult to source for spare parts such as I/O cards. So there were frequent line stoppages whenever we experienced problems related to the control system," he informs CE Asia.

Solution seeking
Recognizing the issue with the aged equipment, Coca Cola made the decision to upgrade the control systems on the RGB lines in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

"We had a number of options when it came to supplier," says country supply chain manager Diem. "In fact, we had a choice of three. Our two main criteria were the solution in terms of the technology offering and the quality of the after-sales service. Although the other options were cheaper, we decided to go with Siemens because of the advanced technology of the S7 PLC, the professional approach it took during the bid stage, and the after-sales technical support and service that would be available from the local company, Siemens Vietnam."

Although this may not have been the most complex of migration projects in terms of size, especially when compared to DCS migrations, one key task was ensuring that Siemens Vietnam and systems integrator ITD Automation fully understood the line process and its various constituent equipment, especially since the original line supplier was not involved in the project.

In Ho Chi Minh City, it was the responsibility of Tran Huu Thoi and his staff to liaise with the Siemens team when the migration project team kicked off in 2009. "The RGB line was bought as a complete system and now we were splitting it in order to upgrade to the S7-300 controller."

On its part, Siemens was anxious to ensure that Coca-Cola staff would be conversant with the new system by offering training courses on aspects such as the Step 7 programming language. Thoi's team had also attended Profibus roadshows in Vietnam, which ensured they were conversant with the benefits of modern fieldbus systems in terms of asset management and diagnostics as well as in cabling and installation.

Both Diem and Thoi point to the migration process as being smooth with good cooperation between the teams and a professional approach on the part of Siemens. Specifically at the Ho Chi Minh plant, the implementation involved upgrade of the controllers for four machines: Washer – which cleans returned glass bottles for reuse; Filler – the core process of filling glass bottles with the required beverage; Case Conveyor – line transport of cases of filled bottles; and Labeler – end-of-line product labeling.

Samurai bottles on their way to being filled under the control of the S7-300 PLC.

Reaping rewards
"We have achieved a RGB line production rate increase of 20 percent," says an evidently pleased Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diem. "So in Ho Chi Minh we can now produce 28,000 bottles per hour as compared to the previous 24,000, since the new system went live in April 2010. Similarly, in Hanoi, we have been able to go from 30,000 to 35,500 bottles per hour."

With S7 enabling synchronization between the various line modules, smoother production flow is the result. And naturally, the newer system has higher reliability and so makes for much more predictable production.

For Thoi out on the plant floor, he is happy to see the back of those days of downtime for unplanned maintenance and the difficulties of dealing with an older control system. A side benefit from the upgrade is that the extracted S5 PLC components are now a ready source of spares for another line in the plant that still uses S5 controllers.

The success of the project has also reached the ears of Coca-Cola Beverages Sri Lanka, a sister company in the Sabco group, who made the trip up to Vietnam to see just what and how it was done, with their own upgrade project in mind.

Country supply chain manager Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diem evidently happy with the 20 percent production rate increase (to 28,000 bottles per hour) at the Ho Chi Minh plant after the control system migration.

Optimal future
And looking ahead, the upgrade to modern controls technology puts Coca Cola Vietnam in a position to move to the next evolution stage: Optimized Packaging Line (OPL).

"This is Siemens' concept for integrating an entire packaging line on a common automation and communications standard. Profinet provides the backbone by enabling horizontal linking of the various machine controllers and vertical integration to a SCADA package for supervisory control of the entire packaging line. And OMAC-based standardized software structures reduce the amount of application software required," explains Hoang Thi Kieu Anh, senior sales manager, Siemens Vietnam.

"So machines can be quickly and simply connected to one another, line bottlenecks can be rapidly identified, and there is far less engineering complexity. The result is lower lifecycle costs, less downtime, and improved quality," she adds.

Tasked with satisfying the thirsty demands of a growing, affluent population with ever more sophisticated tastes, that sounds like something that Coca Cola Vietnam would definitely want to have in its sights for the future.