Midway between Des Moines and Minneapolis, lies Mason City, Iowa, a vibrant community in northern Iowa where Golden Grain Energy LLC planted its roots back in 2004. The company produces approximately 130 million gallons of ethanol annually, DCO (distillers corn oil), and both wet and dry distillers grains, providing a feed source for local livestock farmers. In 2021, the facility became home to the “World’s Largest Grain Bin,” which is large enough to park a 767 Boeing jet inside, according to Sukup Manufacturing Co. Now, construction is underway on a another grain bin of the same size, which is anticipated to begin operations in late 2023. Matt Dutka, Golden Grain Energy’s plant manager, has been with the company since its inception, and has also served as production manager and maintenance supervisor during his tenure. In 2019, Dutka and his team deployed a Plant Process Management (PPM) solution by eschbach trademarked Shiftconnector, which has proven to be a critical and necessary complement to the plant’s PLC/DCS investment for digitalizing manual workflow for shift logs and shift handover. With 24/7 operations, the Shiftconnector enterprise platform is central to Golden Grain Energy’s digital transformation journey in that it ensures consistent workflow and transparent documentation, creating a single version of the truth and a reliable audit trail. All information regarding high priority events, shift logs, shift handover, open tasks, and unacknowledged instructions is organized for both operators and supervisors, including those covering for co-workers out ill, on vacation or otherwise not available. After utilizing Shiftconnector and validating it within the company, the team recognized an opportunity to begin using the software to track additional data that was being maintained through paper-based logbooks like incoming and outgoing products, transportation method, relevant dates, bills of lading, vendors, grains inventory, safety and process bypass interlocks, and plant events and announcements. “I was starting to see how time-consuming and cumbersome it was for managers, supervisors, and operators to gain visibility into the key information that was needed on a routine basis to efficiently run the plant. We knew that utilizing Shiftconnector to continue to automate our workflows and transition to electronic records was the solution, but what we didn’t have was the extra bandwidth to address it alongside all the other projects that were in our pipeline.” Dutka says. “That’s when I reached out to Novaspect to explore the services they could provide so we could quickly make improvements, free up our production team’s time, and make everyone’s jobs easier.” Dutka decided to engage Novaspect, an eschbach Shiftconnector solution partner. Jon Hall is the vice president of Novaspect’s Digital Transformation Business Unit and has been with the company since 2000. Hall oversees an experienced team of MES Application, loT Data Integration, and Software engineers who manage and successfully deploy a wide range of digital solutions projects. “Initial discussions with Matt and his team centered around their current processes and how to fully leverage Shiftconnector to further digitize Golden Grain Energy’s workflows, eliminate unnecessary paperwork, be more efficient with routine tasks, more effective with non-routine tasks and steps, and ensure that key information could be easily viewed, analyzed and shared,” Hall says. Tyler Peterson, who has been with Novaspect for over a decade and currently leads business development for the company’s Digital Transformation business unit, says “Once the project commenced, the first thing we did was migrate Golden Grain Energy to the Shiftconnector Cloud SaaS environment, enabling a maintenance-free and remotely accessible solution. From there, we conducted a technical workshop with the Golden Grain Energy team where we created a list of prioritized use cases. One key item they wanted addressed was an electronic logbook that could capture the information from shift changeover and provide a summary like their paper cheat sheet that is filled out by the operators throughout their shift. The captured shift information also needed to have an audit trail that could be used for legal audits as needed. Our team began creating the customized solution and reviewed the changes with Matt and his team for feedback at regular intervals throughout the project until they were officially tested, approved, and released into production.” Dutka notes that he personally used to spend an hour of his day following up with operators to obtain updates and information, but only a few months later with the new digitalized workflows in place, the amount of review time has been reduced to five minutes per week because everything can be accessed remotely from Shiftconnector. “We felt the ROI immediately, and it has made us much more focused and efficient,” says Dutka. At the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop &amp; Expo this past June, Peterson shared during a panel presentation that plans are already in the works with Golden Grain Energy to leverage Shiftconnector in even more ways down the road. “After experiencing the benefits first-hand of just some of the powerful shift log capabilities, the companies are discussing additional enhancements with regard to utilizing the built-in Shiftconnector e-mail notifications and newly released AI Smart Search, as well as API integrations with other platforms at the facility like their work order system and loadout system,” says Peterson. Novaspect’s Hall adds that, “the concept of Digital Transformation has been emerging for years, so our customer’s experience can vary between relatively limited levels of automation with primarily paper-based processes to fully autonomous operations with minimized human interaction. Our goal is to meet each client at whatever stage they are at in their automation journey so they can advance their operational technologies and propel their business forward.” Golden Grain Energy’s successful application of Shiftconnector, through its partnership with an experienced company like Novaspect, provides the ethanol industry with a great example of how embracing modern technologies can lead to improved workflow efficiency, reduced paperwork, enhanced data tracking and visibility, and increased overall productivity. Experience has proven time and again that it is important to be adaptable to stay competitive in our ever-evolving landscape.Author: Natae Shreeves Contact: <a href="mailto:NShreeves@novaspect.com">NShreeves@novaspect.com</a>CONTRIBUTION: The claims and statements made in this article belong exclusively to the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ethanol Producer Magazine or its advertisers. All questions pertaining to this article should be directed to the author(s).Published in the 2023 October issue of Ethanol Producer Magazine

2023-09-21 - A Digital Workflow Solution (Ethanol Producer Magazine)

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Case study: Golden Grain Energy is leveraging a plant process management and digital transformation solution that optimizes plant communication and workflow with a quick ROI.

A Digital Workflow Solution

A Digital Workflow Solution

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A Digital Workflow Solution