In 2021, Clover Industries, a leading South African food and beverage group, embarked on a digital transformation and automation upgrade journey to meet essential system technology requirements and evolving demands in its operations. The company set out to redefine its automation roadmap to support its business strategy and objectives.
Clover Industries chose Ignition to achieve successful effective enterprise control across multiple sites.
This was motivated by large-scale consolidation projects which were planned at that time and required an overhaul of its existing technology platforms. The journey was complicated by the challenges presented by the pandemic, but a successful solution was achieved and it is proving its capabilities.
Working with Element 8 and several system integrator partners, Clover Industries adopted Ignition® by Inductive Automation to tackle its automation requirements. The approach involved establishing new standards and templates across multiple sites to ensure uniformity and efficiency. Ignition was chosen for its flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, enabling Clover to develop reusable templates, provide high-performance user interfaces, and ensure seamless integration with existing systems. The implementation also allowed Clover to run systems on various client devices, improving accessibility and efficiency.
The transition began with smaller scale projects, enabling the company to understand what the Ignition Platform could do and to see how it performed. Bigger projects were then implemented progressively, and quite quickly, to full implementation.
The transition to Ignition streamlined Clover’s operations significantly, introducing standardised and simpler systems that are easier to manage and scale. Clover also won substantial cost savings and gained enhanced system reliability and improved user experience. The new SCADA platform enables quick response times and reduces the complexity of updates and maintenance, empowering plant operators and integrating real-time data for better decision-making.
This transformation has set a solid foundation for Clover’s future growth, enabling an efficient rollout to upgrade or replace legacy systems and creating an environment ripe for further technological innovation.
Element8, founded in 2020, is a distributor of Ignition SCADA and IIoT Platform, Sepasoft MES, Canary Historian and Flow Analytics Hub. It works with manufacturers and utilities aiming to ensure a flourishing, data-driven future.
For more information visit: https://element8.co.za/about/
