Building a 'lighthouse factory'
Mengniu has been awarded a 'lighthouse' certification from World Economic Forum for achieving step-change impact in performance through technology-enabled transformation. Discover more about their – world’s first – fully intelligent dairy factory with a complete end-to-end solution, that was created, designed and implemented in cooperation with Tetra Pak, together with a network of specialists.
Thanks to system-wide, chain-wide, and process-wide digitalisation and automation, Mengniu’s new factory has achieved a whole new level of production efficiency. Packaging efficiency is up 67%, energy consumption is down 23%, space utilisation is down 37%, and Mengniu has seen a striking 32% reduction in the conversion cost and 20 times increase in people efficiency. Says Thomas Xia, Manager Mengniu Digital Transformation Program: “Together, we are setting new standards for the future of dairy production!”
Read press release on World Economic Forum, Oct. 8 2024: World Economic Forum Recognizes Leading Companies Transforming Global Manufacturing with AI Innovation
Where it all began
The project to transform Mengniu Ningxia began in 2020 at an end-of-year workshop attended by the top management of Tetra Pak China and Mengniu. Says Thomas Xia, Manager Mengniu Digital Transformation Program: “After over 25 years in the dairy business, Mengniu wanted to bring together its accumulated wealth of manufacturing experience to optimise operations — establishing 100% consistent production and management processes with the help of digitalisation."
They had a clear vision of what they wanted to achieve; they just needed a partner who could help turn their vision into reality.
Setting bold targets
- Mengniu’s primary ambition was to reach the highest annual labour efficiency ratio of any dairy factory in the world. Specifically, they wanted to achieve "three one-hundreds", meaning that 100 employees would be able to produce 1 million tonnes of dairy products annually, with a production value of RMB10 billion.
- The new plant would be fully automated; designed to maximise efficiency and to attract a new generation of digitally literate employees. Operators – now called ‘maintenance and operation engineers’ – would not being doing any of the manual labour associated with traditional factory jobs.
- Although the flow of production in the new plant would not be radically different from before, the plant’s business systems would be integrated, meaning that communication between them would no longer require manual data input. This would reduce workload and, at the same time, increase data accuracy and reliability.
- With a strong foundation of automation and an integrated production process, Mengniu would be able to start turning data into valuable intelligence, establishing a solid foundation upon which to base its business decisions.
All these targets would be enabled by unmanned operation, advanced automation, data integration and data intelligence.
Tetra Pak creates an ecosystem
After that first workshop, it became clear that no single company could provide every single part of the solution that would transform Mengniu’s factory. Says Thomas,
“To meet their ambitious brief, we needed a whole ecosystem of different suppliers and partners. So, we called upon other companies to contribute their unique expertise, including Mengniu themselves, who contributed some solutions devised specifically for their own business.”
Tetra Pak provided the production equipment, which would include 24 filling lines (nine currently in operation) — among them, our Tetra Pak® E3/Speed Hyper machines — and an advanced control room from which the operators could manage and monitor all ongoing manufacturing operations. “Our digital platform includes System Guide Manufacturing (not only MES) and we were also responsible for integrating with other systems such as Laboratory Information Management (LIMS), Warehouse Management (WMS) and Intelligent Campus,” he concludes.
The ongoing transformation
From the moment you arrive at Mengniu’s new factory in Ningxia, you can see that this is no ordinary dairy plant. There are no security guards at the entrance since all vehicle access is managed remotely. Inside the plant, processing and packaging operations are all handled automatically and monitored from a central control room.
Digital systems control everything from reception through the entire processing and packaging operation, and beyond. Production instructions are automatically routed to the most suitable equipment, circulating production materials along the best path, executing optimal energy usage scheduling and adhering to the highest quality control standards.
The entire team is managed digitally. Operators receive instructions via tablets throughout the working day and are alerted whenever there’s an event that requires their attention. The same is true of the plant manager, who gets a report pushed to his mobile phone each morning, outlining yesterday’s plant performance and what needs to be done today.
Now the project has been successfully delivered, and is meeting Mengniu’s ambitious targets. Our Tetra Pak China team will work closely with Mengniu’s Lingwu team for future optimisation.
Awarded 'lighthouse factory' status by World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum recognised Ningxia factory as a 'lighthouse factory' pioneering accelerated deployment of AI solutions that bolster productivity, enhance problem-solving capabilities and foster innovation. This achievement reflects Mengnui’s commitment to leveraging advanced technologies like AI to drive operational excellence, solve challenges faster, and foster a culture of innovation.
Mengniu will ultimately have 24 production lines in total, with a production capacity of approximately 4,400 tonnes of milk per day. After creating its most modern digitalised plant to date, Mengniu intends to use Ningxia as a blueprint for its other Chinese factories, and to eventually expand the concept to its dairies in New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia.
