With SweetConnect, medium-sized partners from the development and production of special machinery for the confectionery industry have got together to focus know-how from the process chain and to represent and control this clearly and in a standardized way on a digital platform.
By Alfons Strohmaier
Thomas Sollich, owner of Sollich KG and Chocotech GmbH, and Markus Rustler, Managing Partner of Theegarten-Pactec, are well aware that innovations are not only of a technical nature. On the contrary: the dynamically advancing digitalization enables numerous new developments in the areas of service and documentation. Against this background, the medium-sized mechanical engineering companies have now initiated a joint web platform, which will be open to many participants in the sense of the sharing economy. SweetConnect is intended to provide customers with the data of the entire process chain as a manufacturer-independent and neutral background.
Efficiency requires perfect interaction of the entire process chain and thus valid know-how for holistic process solutions. Sollich and Rustler know this and presented the new solution under the title ”myA – myB – myC – How Swiss Connect turns I into We”at the Ticino Innovation Days. With the platform, the medium-sized companies can also play to their strengths as suppliers of flexible and high-performance manufacturing and packaging machines in the areas of planning, maintenance, documentation.
SweetConnect offers the operators in the confectionery industry the ideal platform for maintaining a digital overview of the physically integrated process chain, consisting of excellent equipment from various manufacturers. The individual stages of the confectionery production value chain are monitored centrally, and optimization potential is revealed. SweetConnect acts as a central point of contact that unites all manufacturer-independent applications under one standard. This ensures optimal quality assurance of uniformly designed applications (apps) and future-proofing for further developments.
The SweetConnect platform includes a growing range of features and applications that help producers optimize their production. The permanent availability of critical machine data is the key to efficient production. Using the right key figures, the smallest changes in the process structure can be identified and counteracted in time – before they develop into costly errors or even machine failures. The prevention of unplanned downtimes by monitoring the key figures of machines is supplemented by maintenance cycles based on operating hours. The confectionery manufacturers get a holistic overview of the maintenance needs of their entire manufacturing and packaging equipment and can plan their standardized maintenance cycles to minimize disruption to their production processes.
The SweetConnect platform also creates a standard for document management, whereby all machine-related documents can be managed centrally and across manufacturers. The machines are becoming more and more intuitive to operate, but quick access to the relevant operating instructions or spare parts catalogue is helpful and saves time in an emergency. Central machine management is the core of a standardized platform. Thus, it is possible to replace isolated solutions and to manage all machines in the process chain in one place – regardless of the manufacturer. Users get an overview of their entire value chain and can determine, for example, whether additional orders can be placed at short notice.
