NGen Supercluster Members Deploying New Technology Solutions For Food Processing Sector

Panevo’s ioTORQ platform promises significant productivity improvements for Canadian industry

Hamilton, ON (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen), the industry-led organization leading Canada’s Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster, has announced a $3 million collaborative project, featuring over $1.4 million in co-funding, to develop and scale a novel production monitoring and optimization platform.

Along with partners Saputo and Accuenergy, Panevo is building on successes from a 2020 Pilot Project which was launched to address the food processing sector’s lagging adoption of industry 4.0 technologies. The consortium will apply a novel solution for determining the performance of production assets across food processing and related supply chains. The new project will create a scalable, commercially ready real-time monitoring and advanced analytics platform which will lead to significant commercial opportunities for the consortium partners.

During the project, Panevo’s ioTORQ software, which is hosted in Canada on Microsoft’s Azure cloud service, will be demonstrated with support from a network of Supercluster members. By leveraging connections within the food processing sector and related supply chains, the consortium aims to develop Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and related metrics in true real time, along with advanced machine learning analytics, and ultimately enable a step-change in productivity.

The solution primarily utilizes Accuenergy’s IoT gateways to readily integrate with established manufacturing operations and their production assets irrespective of type or age, facilitating a smoother transition and simpler adoption of industry 4.0 technologies.

As experts in industrial energy management and resource conservation, Panevo also estimates that even modest productivity improvements in the food processing sector could unlock significant potential to reduce industrial GHG emissions. As data sets grow, the consortium partners anticipate that new growth opportunities will arise in many sectors beyond food processing.

Quotes
“Supporting innovative technologies like ioTORQ from development to deployment is essential in building up the capabilities of Canadian manufacturers,” said Jay Myers, CEO, NGen. “This project will leverage NGen’s network to support the development of leaner, modernized, and more flexible manufacturing operations in Canada, while reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions.”

“Canada’s Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster is leveraging the power of collaboration to accelerate the creation and adoption of cutting-edge technologies to bolster our domestic manufacturing capabilities,” said the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. “Canada’s Superclusters are supporting SMEs like Panevo, whose project is a great example of how real-world solutions can give Canada’s food processors a significant competitive advantage globally, both today and in the future.”

“Our focus for this exciting project is to promote Industrial 4.0 technology adoption to Canadian manufacturers, enabling them to achieve productivity improvements and become world-class,” said Panevo’s founder and CEO Craig Holden. “With support from NGen and Microsoft, our team of experienced developers and professional engineers look forward to making the project a success.”

“Accuenergy’s devices are engineered for easy integration into IoT manufacturing environments,” said Howard Wang, Director of Business development at Accuenergy. “As the manufacturing industry evolves towards increasing interconnectivity, accurate data transfer will continue to be an indispensable part of effectively managing these complex ecosystems.”

About NGen (Next Generation Manufacturing Canada)
NGen is the industry-led not-for-profit organization that leads Canada’s Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster. Its mandate is to help build world-leading advanced manufacturing capabilities in Canada for the benefit of Canadians. NGen works to strengthen collaboration among its membership of more than 3,300 manufacturers, technology companies, innovation centres, and researchers, and provides funding and business support to industry-led initiatives that aim to develop, apply, or scale-up transformative manufacturing solutions in Canada for commercialization in global markets.

About Panevo
Founded in 2013, Panevo provides energy conservation and process optimization engineering services. Leveraging expertise gained by working with corporations across a wide range of manufacturing sectors, the company has developed the ioTORQ suite of software products for energy conservation, lean manufacturing and utility bill management, which are utilized to deliver value for North American industry. https://www.panevo.com

About Accuenergy
Accuenergy was formed in 1998 with the vision that facilitating energy information is the cornerstone to providing better energy decisions. As a trusted global manufacturer specialized in advanced energy measurement and communication technology, Accuenergy’s instruments are built to meter, process, and deliver reliable data to any software or server. Accuenergy has developed a growing global footprint with offices in Toronto, Pretoria, Los Angeles and Beijing. https://www.accuenergy.com

About Saputo
Saputo produces, markets, and distributes a wide array of dairy products of the utmost quality, including cheese, fluid milk, extended shelf-life milk and cream products, cultured products, and dairy ingredients. Saputo is one of the top ten dairy processors in the world, a leading cheese manufacturer and fluid milk and cream processor in Canada, the top dairy processor in Australia, and the second largest in Argentina. In the USA, Saputo ranks among the top three cheese producers and is one of the largest producers of extended shelf-life and cultured dairy products. In the United Kingdom, Saputo is the largest manufacturer of branded cheese and a top manufacturer of dairy spreads. Saputo products are sold in several countries under market-leading brands, as well as private label brands. Saputo Inc. is a publicly traded company and its shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “SAP”.

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