Minimising the Risk of Production Stops at Danish Crown

VersionWorks keeps the world’s largest pork exporter producing high-quality pork in a highly efficient production flow with maximum uptime

Background

When British or Japanese consumers sink their teeth into a piece of crisp bacon or a tender pork chop, the meat would very likely have come from Danish Crown. The Danish abattoir giant, headquartered in Randers, Denmark, has annual sales of DKK 45 billion (EUR 6 billion) and is the world’s largest pork exporter. The company attained among others its market position through targeted investments in high-tech abattoirs. Here, automation and robotics play a vital role in contributing to efficiency.

The group has 12 pig abattoirs situated in Denmark, Sweden, and Poland. The largest of these, Danish Crown in Horsens, Denmark, is Europe’s second-largest abattoir with a production of 93,000 pigs per week. On average, 1200 pigs are slaughtered here per hour. The plant’s three production lines make up part of a huge logistical apparatus, with farmers at one end and consumers at the other. Even the slightest deviation has significant consequences for the entire logistics chain.

Challenge
  • Danish Crown is always on the lookout for production optimisations – Many internal staff and external suppliers program the group’s PAC software, making it impossible to maintain an overview of which software versions are located where. The lack of oversight increases the risk of production downtime and significantly prolongs downtime when incidents do occur
  • Danish Crown uses PLCs from a mix of suppliers, which presents a major backup challenge

Solutions

Results
  • Faster troubleshooting due to detailed history on each PAC program
  • Fewer production stops and shorter downtime
  • The investment paid for itself after a single production stop