Suzhou, China – September 2025 – PFI Foods (China) Co., Ltd., a leading global manufacturer of ready-to-eat meals and frozen food, has announced a 30% increase in production throughput and 70% fewer equipment failures after upgrading to the ABB PPC907BE101 3BHE024577R0101 high-performance PLC. The deployment, completed in Q2 2025, addressed critical bottlenecks in the company’s 12 smart production lines—where legacy controllers caused slow changeovers, inconsistent quality, and frequent unplanned stops, costing the company ¥4.2 million (€560,000) annually in lost output.
The Challenge: Slow Changeovers and Quality Inconsistency in Food Manufacturing
Prior to the upgrade, PFI Foods’ Suzhou plant faced three major operational pain points:
- Lengthy Product Changeovers: Legacy PLCs required 45–60 minutes to reconfigure settings for new product lines (e.g., switching from frozen pizza to stir-fry kits). With 8+ changeovers daily, this wasted 6+ hours of production time weekly.
- Quality Variability: Inconsistent temperature control during cooking and freezing led to 3.5% of products failing FSSC 22000 food safety audits. Manual quality checks added 10 seconds per unit, slowing throughput further.
- Frequent Equipment Failures: The plant’s humid environment (60–80% relative humidity) caused legacy PLCs to suffer 20+ component failures yearly. Each failure halted an entire production line for 2–3 hours, disrupting schedules and increasing waste.
“Food manufacturing demands speed, flexibility, and uncompromising quality,” said Wang Lei, PFI Foods’ China Operations Director. “Our old PLCs were holding us back—we needed a solution that could handle fast changeovers, maintain precise control, and survive our production environment.”
ABB PPC907BE101: The Flexible PLC for Food & Beverage Smart Manufacturing
After testing two competitor PLCs, PFI Foods selected the ABB PPC907BE101 3BHE024577R0101 for its speed, flexibility, and food-safe design:
- Rapid Changeover Technology: Pre-configured product libraries and one-click recipe switching reduce changeover time to 15 minutes—75% faster than legacy systems. The PLC’s 1ms logic execution speed ensures immediate response to new settings, minimizing downtime between production runs.
- Precision Process Control: 24-bit analog input resolution enables temperature control within ±0.5°C during cooking and freezing, eliminating quality variability. The PLC integrates with in-line sensors to automate quality checks, reducing inspection time to 2 seconds per unit.
- Food-Safe Rugged Design: IP67-rated housing (dust-tight and waterproof) and corrosion-resistant stainless-steel mounting brackets withstand high humidity and daily washdowns with food-grade cleaning agents. Wide operating temperature range (-25°C to 70°C) supports both frozen and ambient production zones.
- End-to-End Traceability: Real-time data logging of ingredients, processing temperatures, and packaging details integrates with PFI’s MES (Manufacturing Execution System) via OPC UA. This creates a complete audit trail for FSSC 22000 and ISO 22000 compliance, reducing audit preparation time by 60%.
Results: Faster Production, Better Quality, and Lower Waste
Five months after deployment, PFI Foods’ Suzhou plant achieved remarkable improvements:
- 30% Higher Throughput: Changeover time reductions and faster quality checks increased daily production from 350 to 455 tons, generating an additional €728,000 in annual revenue.
- 70% Fewer Equipment Failures: The PLC’s rugged design reduced component failures from 20+ to 6 annually, cutting unplanned downtime by 85% and saving €476,000 in lost output.
- 99.8% Quality Compliance: Product failure rates dropped from 3.5% to 0.2%, eliminating €112,000 in annual waste costs and streamlining food safety audits.
- 50% Lower Maintenance Costs: Remote diagnostics via the ABB Ability™ platform allowed technicians to resolve 80% of issues without on-site visits, reducing maintenance expenses by €168,000 yearly.
“The ABB PPC907BE101 has become the backbone of our smart manufacturing strategy,” Wang said. “It’s flexible enough to handle our diverse product range and robust enough to survive our production environment. We’re now setting new efficiency benchmarks for the food industry.”
Marcus Lee, ABB’s APAC Product Lead for Food & Beverage Automation, noted the PLC’s unique value: “Food manufacturers need solutions that balance speed, safety, and flexibility. The PPC907BE101 is engineered for this—helping companies meet growing consumer demand while complying with strict safety standards.”
PFI Foods plans to roll out the ABB PPC907BE101 to its 3 other Chinese plants by 2026, aiming to achieve a group-wide 25% increase in production efficiency and 40% reduction in food waste.
