The Dannon Company, Inc. is America's founding national yogurt company and continually leverages its expertise to develop and market innovative cultured fresh dairy products in the United States. Headquartered in White Plains, NY, Dannon has plants in Minster, OH, Fort Worth, TX and West Jordan, UT.
The Minster, OH, plant is the largest yogurt manufacturing plant in the United States, producing 230,000 cups of yogurt an hour (three million cups per day). Dannon meets or exceeds the regulatory standards of all federal, state and local environmental agencies.
The Opportunity
The Minster, OH manufacturing facility has five separate buildings networked together under a Cisco IP infrastructure. Within each building, there are various alarm producing systems including fire panels monitoring fire pull cords and smoke detectors, door access control systems, ammonia control systems, security, and sprinkler systems. Each system produces independent alarms and was installed by separate providers.
A new utilities building was built at the Minster plant to house refrigeration units, boilers, pumps, etc. In order to meet federal and local regulations, including requirements to provide personal safety and environmental monitoring, Dannon needed a better means for proactive, local alarming in the event of an emergency or a system related issue.
Dannon was challenged by the inability to centrally monitor all of their disparate systems. They were in need of a solution that would create a single alerting platform across multiple systems in multiple locations while providing a web-based user interface with real-time alarm detail.
The Solution
Status Solutions worked in conjunction with Cisco Systems technology partner IPcelerate™ to deliver an integrated alert and notification solution to Dannon. In the first phase of the project, a direct link was created between Dannon’s existing Allen-Bradley Control Logix Platform Controller, the IPsession™ appliance provided by IPcelerate, the Status Alert Module (SAM) software provided by Status Solutions, and the Cisco IP phone system. This solution enabled a single alerting platform that leveraged the existing Cisco infrastructure.
With the IPsession appliance on the Cisco network and the SAM software (resident on the IPsession server) performing the alarm management, alert management, and reporting, Dannon is in full compliance of state regulations that require two forms of notification.
“Obviously the solution has allowed us to improve operational efficiency, but it has also enhanced the personal safety of our employees and environmental awareness of what’s going on in our facilities at the Minster plant,” comments David Uetrecht, On-site Support Manager – SW, Dannon IT Group.
The Status Alert Module on the IPsession™ appliance provided Dannon with the means to seamlessly integrate multiple alarm producing systems and achieve one common alerting platform for alarm processing, management, and reporting.
“The level of customization needed for this solution required the alignment of a number of teams. We were successful in this effort and were able to get things done in a timely manner,” states David Uetrecht.
The Partnership
The success at the Minster plant has sparked plans for expansion of the alerting solution across the Dannon enterprise to include the two other US plants. Status Solutions will continue to work closely with Dannon to move the current single point alarming to the next level with alert server management allowing for processing to multiple destinations (i.e. Cisco IP phones, cell phones, email, paging, etc.).
Future plans also include text to speech alarming for paging destinations and a common web-based user interface that will supply real-time alarm detail for all monitored systems and potentially a map interface for alarm location.
Dannon is now equipped to leverage their investment in the Status Alert Module on IPsession and partnership with Status Solutions to achieve strategic risk management goals in the most efficient and economical way.
