Control and automation projects delivered across production sites

Chobani needed a controls partner to help establish its Australian manufacturing operation with new production lines and site infrastructure, and the relationship has had to keep adding and optimising lines without disturbing production already running on site. Metromotion Controls supported the initial setup and has continued to add, optimise and support production lines over the years, bringing process, packaging and site services onto common control and data interfaces so each addition extends one operating environment rather than a separate island. The scope spans plant services including boilers, refrigeration, trade waste, power monitoring and water usage monitoring, plus OEE, site data analytics and contextualised production data from lab equipment and other external sources.

La Casa del Formaggio needed a greenfield cheese manufacturing facility to support production growth. Metromotion Controls delivered the electrical and automation scope from design through commissioning, building out 3 Motor Control Centres and 21 PowerFlex525 VSDs for the plant drives and tying the process together through 30 PID loops and 16,237 Ignition tags. The scope covered MCC design, Ignition visibility, process automation, CIP controls, training and handover.

Real Pet Food Company needed automated raw materials handling with stronger batch traceability and scheduling, across a plant where mechanical, electrical and automation scope all had to be brought together by one team before startup. Metromotion Controls structured the batch control to ISA-88, breaking each product into recipe phases and validating the transfer route and ingredient at each step so material moved against a confirmed path rather than an assumed one. The team supplied, installed and commissioned the system, coordinating mechanical, electrical and automation scope through simulation, FAT and startup.

Peters Ice Cream is one of Australia's most recognised ice cream manufacturers, with a history spanning over 100 years. When Peters extended their production facility with multiple new lines, Metromotion Controls delivered the full automation scope across four major sub-projects: chocolate mixing and tankage, raw material handling, rim tank systems, and multi-line conveyor integration. Each sub-project was managed as a discrete engineering package while maintaining coordination across the broader facility build-out.

Sakata (Smith's Snackfood Company) added new production equipment beside existing assets and needed the controls layer to remain consistent. Metromotion Controls delivered field device, network, PLC and SCADA integration so the line entered service with clearer interfaces and handover support.

Patties Foods needed reliable temperature and cycle control for a hot water set process used in forming and cooking cycles. The work had to fit a tight budget, so the scope was kept deliberately lean and every element had to earn its place. Metromotion Controls closed the loop on water temperature and held the forming and cooking cycle timing in PLC logic, so set point and dwell stayed consistent run to run. The result was a focused automation upgrade that improved temperature and cycle consistency for the line.

Tibaldi needed better stock visibility as production volumes increased and manual stock tracking struggled to keep pace with rising throughput. Metromotion Controls implemented automated inventory management integrated with the existing production controls, taking stock movements directly from PLC events into a SQL database rather than relying on manual entry. This kept the inventory record in step with what the line was actually doing, reducing manual entry and improving stock traceability as throughput grew.

McCormick is one of the world's largest spice and flavouring manufacturers, with production facilities across Australia. When the team needed to migrate a critical Clean-In-Place system to a modern, maintainable platform, Metromotion Controls delivered a full migration to Ignition SCADA with integrated database, multi-terminal operator access, and a distributed control architecture spanning the facility. CIP systems are production-critical in any flavouring or seasoning environment, and the migration was planned and executed to maintain production continuity throughout.

Cobs Fine Foods is one of Australia's leading premium snack manufacturers. The business needed real-time production data from all line equipment, including checkweigher and metal detector systems, connected to a centralised OEE platform provided by a third-party vendor. Metromotion Controls designed and delivered the automation integration layer, connecting each line asset to Ignition, capturing data at PLC level, and passing it upstream to the OFS OEE platform. The project included full network architecture design, device configuration, and the PLC logic required for clean, consistent data capture across the line.

Building on the greenfield automation delivered at Chobani's Australian facility, Metromotion Controls was engaged to develop an OEE data platform that gave the operations team structured visibility of line performance, availability losses, and production output. The project connected existing PLC infrastructure to a centralised reporting environment, establishing consistent downtime reason codes, shift-level OEE calculation, and management dashboards aligned to how the site teams already ran daily reviews.

Remedy Drinks is one of Australia's fastest-growing beverage producers, known for its kombucha and low-sugar drink range. As production volumes grew, the maintenance team needed a tighter connection between the plant floor and their MEX CMMS system. Metromotion Controls designed and delivered the integration between the Ignition SCADA platform and MEX, enabling automatic work order creation from plant events and giving the maintenance team structured visibility of asset status without manual data re-entry.

Haigh's Chocolates is one of Australia's most respected premium chocolate manufacturers. Chocolate processing requires precise temperature control at every stage, from tempering through to piping and moulding, and any inconsistency shows directly in product quality. Metromotion Controls delivered an automation system covering the chocolate pipework, including temperature monitoring, flow control and the sequence logic required to manage the production process reliably. The system was designed around the specific requirements of premium chocolate manufacturing, where process stability directly determines product quality and yield.

JC Smale needed automation delivery to keep pace with mechanical development on a brick texturing machine. The machine design was still evolving while the controls were being written, so the control logic and HMI had to move with a moving target rather than a fixed specification. Metromotion Controls worked with the engineering team and structured the HMI around recipe-based operation, holding the texturing parameters as selectable recipes so a stored set could be recalled and applied to the texturing sequence without reprogramming. The team built the HMI for recipe-based operation and supported commissioning in the workshop and at the end-customer site.

Steamtech Engineering needed to modernise boiler automation programs and support end-customer commissioning. As an OEM, Steamtech installs across multiple end-customer sites, so the work had to lift ageing legacy code onto a current platform while staying suitable for repeat deployment rather than a single bespoke job. Metromotion Controls migrated the legacy code base onto current automation platforms and verified the migrated logic against the field through structured I/O testing before commissioning. This helped create a more consistent control baseline across new installations.

The can filling line at Remedy Drinks is a production-critical asset. Unplanned downtime on the filler directly affects output and shelf availability. Metromotion Controls was engaged to implement a condition monitoring solution that captured vibration and operational data from the can filler, providing the maintenance team with early indicators of developing faults. The solution used an MQTT-based data collection architecture to feed condition data into Ignition, where it was trended and threshold-monitored alongside production events.

Lactalis Australia needed programming, commissioning and production support across multiple dairy sites, each with its own installed base and running production that the work had to fit around. Metromotion Controls worked across Bendigo, Echuca, Tamar Valley, Longwarry, Rowville and Lemnos, validating CIP sets step by step so cleaning sequences met hygiene requirements before lines returned to product, and carrying SCADA work in Citect consistently across the site systems. The engagement covered process upgrades, OEM installations, CIP validation and SCADA work.

Arnott's needed a current-state view of control system infrastructure to guide future automation investment, drawn from equipment installed and extended over many years with limited consolidated documentation. Metromotion Controls completed a structured audit through an on-site walkthrough, identifying and documenting the existing control assets, architecture and network so each could be assessed for obsolescence risk. The work produced prioritised recommendations covering assets, architecture and obsolescence risk.

Orora needed to understand excessive latency on a production-critical OT network where the disruption was already affecting output and the investigation had to proceed without taking the running network down. Metromotion Controls examined the network topology, device configurations and traffic behaviour to isolate where latency was being introduced, then captured the as-built environment in accurate Ethernet schematics. The work produced recommendations focused on restoring performance and reducing repeat disruption.

Austral Bricks is one of Australia's largest brick manufacturers, operating multiple production sites across the country. At their Wollert facility, the team wanted to evaluate MQTT as a modern connectivity protocol for extracting machine data and enabling condition monitoring at scale. Metromotion Controls designed and delivered a structured MQTT trial, establishing secure certificate-based connectivity, documenting the architecture, and providing a completed implementation the site team could validate and extend. The project gave Austral Bricks a working reference implementation for MQTT-based data collection on industrial equipment.