Summer Garden Foods Improves OEE and Reduces Downtime with Plex MES

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MES

Summer Garden Foods Improves OEE and Reduces Downtime with Plex MES

Case study showing how Summer Garden Foods used Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform to identify micro-downtime on filler machines and improve operator OEE visibility.

Published

June 4, 2026

Read time

3 min read

Source

Summer Garden Foods, a food and beverage manufacturer producing up to 100,000 cases weekly, implemented the Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform in late 2022. The system connected Rockwell Automation controllers to capture detailed downtime data previously missed on paper logs. Operators gained daily OEE visibility, enabling targeted training and process adjustments that reduced four hours of micro-downtime per shift.

Key takeaways

Micro-downtime events of 1-5 minutes accumulated to four hours per shift on filler equipment

Plex extracted real-time data from Rockwell ControlLogix controllers without custom coding

Daily personal OEE dashboards increased operator awareness and accountability

Scalable rollout started with one machine and expanded to downstream equipment

Future plans include product-level run time analysis across sauce variants

Market overview

SCR methodology note

Vendor landscape

Leaders

Implementation considerations

Important consideration

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