PepsiAmericas Reduces Production Waste by $2-million per Year

The next time you take a sip of a Pepsi^® product, take extra enjoyment in knowing that a sophisticated lab testing and quality control system called PASLAB is in place at PepsiAmericas.

Easily Zontec’s most elaborate custom-designed software project, PASLAB acquires and manages test data from PepsiAmericas’ lab measurement equipment to satisfy their parent company’s strict product testing standards, master specifications, clinistics and regulatory requirements.  It features a quality control component centered around Synergy 2000™ Statistical Process Control (SPC) software, and is currently being used in 21 plants in the U.S. and the Caribbean.

PASLAB replaces an outdated quality tracking system that lacked the ability to be networked and had ceased to provide PepsiAmericas with a real enterprise-wide solution.  As a result, various plants had their own sets of specifications that oftentimes didn’t match that of their PepsiCo parent.  “PASLAB ensures that all facilities are playing on the same field, working from one set of master tables,” says Al Warner, Director of Quality.

The application front-end was built using Zontec’s S2K DLL and ActiveX toolkits which allowed the system to be flexible, provide an open architecture for the future, and interface with various data collection devices using standard off-the-shelf hardware.

The system captures data such as CO2, Brix, TA/pH, net content, and TDS/TBA and transfers it to PepsiAmericas Headquarters in Rolling Meadows, IL.  “It allows us to prove to PepsiCo that we performed a test, what time we performed it and what were the results.  We incorporated closed-loop logic so that Lab Technicians can’t proceed until the test requirement is completed,” notes Warner.  Thus, full product traceability can be achieved.  “Now we have a system that presents the data in a format that the beverage industry is familiar with, and can output reports any way we wish.”

“In the first year, we’ve reduced our out-of-standards by 50%, improved our compliance level from 96.3 to 98.5, and reduced waste by more than $2-million a year,” he points out.

The Quality Control portion of the system gives PepsiAmericas the monitoring, analysis and charting capabilities for driving the business forward from a continuous improvement standpoint.

Each month, the individual plants have been submitting a performance report card for the system.  Zontec consistently rates scores in the high 90s (out of a possible 100) based on accuracy and functionality of the data flow, report capability, project progress, hardware interfacing and phone support.

“Pepsi plant have long spent too much time collecting data and not nearly enough time interpreting and taking the correct action.  PASLAB enables plants to work smarter,” says Tom Tansey, Technical Services Manager at PepsiCo.

During 2004, PepsiAmericas expects to expand PASLAB into their facilities in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  In total, the capability will allow the company to satisfy the product preferences for more than 117-million consumers.