Beyond the machine: unlocking better plant performance

Factories are often improved one machine at a time. But they perform as a whole. A cooling system and a dryer may each work efficiently while an opportunity goes unused: one removes heat that the other needs. Or equipment may be running exactly as intended – for production requirements that have since changed. It is also not a one-time exercise. Better plant performance starts with identifying the right opportunities, continues through integrated implementation and depends on improving operations over time. This is the thinking behind GEA’s Better Journey: Think Better, Build Better and Run Better.

Three dairy projects show what this means in practice. At Arla Foods, a wider look at energy flows revealed an opportunity beyond the spray dryer itself. At Aurivo, processing, heating and cooling systems were designed around one another – nearly eliminating the need to burn fuel oil for pasteurization. At the Michigan Milk Producers Association (MMPA), data and ongoing expert support are helping sustain and improve dryer performance over time.

Different plants, different challenges, but one common approach: look at the bigger picture, turn it into an integrated solution and keep improving as production needs change.

Think Better: Asking the right questions

At Arla’s AKAFA milk-powder factory in Denmark, Arla and GEA looked beyond the dryer and considered the factory as a whole. A holistic energy audit in 2018 revealed an opportunity: The spray dryer needed large amounts of heat while other parts of the plant needed cooling. Two separate demands that could become part of the same solution.

Arla and GEA went on to achieve a world first by integrating a GEA AddCool® high-temperature heat-pump system into an operational dairy spray dryer. Energy recovered from cooling could now be upgraded and put back to work as useful heat. The system cuts natural gas use for producing the hot air needed for spray drying by 59 percent; when powered with renewable electricity, it cuts CO₂ emissions by around 1,500 metric tons a year.

As Line Brandt Pedersen, Director, Supply Chain Sustainability at Arla Foods, puts it: “A key learning from the AKAFA project is that sustainability and performance, including financials, can go hand in hand.” The project started with emissions, but the solution ultimately had to work on all three fronts.

Build Better: Putting the big picture into practice

At Aurivo in Ireland, a similar approach made the fuel-oil boilers almost redundant for pasteurization. During a major upgrade of Aurivo’s Killygordon dairy, GEA was installing a larger pasteurizer and other liquid-processing equipment while also replacing an aging refrigeration system. That created an opportunity to engineer the systems around one another.

Instead of simply rejecting the heat removed during cooling, GEA integrated a heat pump to recover that energy and raise it to a useful temperature. Hot water at around 78 degrees Celsius could then be used for pasteurization. “We didn’t just provide a heat pump or a pasteurizer, we optimized the pasteurizer to suit the heat pump application,” explains Kenneth Hoffmann, Product Manager for Heat Pumps at GEA. The oil-fired boilers now run for about one hour a week – just long enough to kick-start each process cycle.

The engineering also had to work around a dairy in full production; careful coordination was critical. “One of our biggest fears was protracted downtime and not being able to deliver to our customers,” recalls Stephen Carlin, Engineering Manager at Aurivo. He reported no disruption to milk-processing capacity or quality during commissioning.

The wider upgrade cut CO₂ emissions at the Killygordon site by 80 percent. Across processing, heating and chilling, energy consumption fell by around 12 percent, while hourly milk-processing capacity increased by 80 percent and annual operating savings exceeded €347,000.

Even a well-designed plant does not stay optimized on its own. Products, volumes and operating conditions continue to change, which means optimization must continue too.

Run Better: Improving over time

At MMPA’s plant in Ovid, Michigan, operator turnover was contributing to inconsistent spray-dryer performance. GEA OptiPartner advanced process control made performance less dependent on the individual operator by combining a mathematical model of the dryer with live operating data. The system automatically adjusts operating parameters such as temperature and airflow, handling much of the constant fine-tuning needed to keep production close to optimum.

The gains showed up across the process: productivity increased, and the dryer’s specific energy consumption fell by 6.4 percent. The improvements have been maintained since OptiPartner was installed in 2021. But the system itself isn’t static. It can evolve as recipes change, equipment is reconfigured or production priorities shift.

GEA pairs OptiPartner with Performance Care, a subscription service for ongoing optimization. A dedicated GEA specialist works with the plant over time, using performance data to refine operating parameters, troubleshoot problems and identify further opportunities. As GEA Digital Optimization Specialist Kristina Uhd puts it: “Our job actually starts after the commissioning.” And for MMPA Engineering Director Gasper Calandrino, that ongoing relationship is key: “The big gain for us is that we’ve got a resource always engaged with the system and process performance.”

The next opportunity

These projects illustrate the reality of plant performance today. A factory is not only a collection of machines but a system of interacting processes – and one that keeps changing. A plant that was optimized five years ago may now be doing a slightly different job.

Nor does every improvement require a major new installation – or algorithm. Over the working life of a plant, opportunities can emerge through maintenance, equipment upgrades, retrofits or simply by looking again at a process designed years earlier. Commissioning is an important milestone, but not the last efficiency decision a plant will ever need.

And the work continues with all three customers. Arla and GEA are exploring a phased rollout to additional spray dryers at the AKAFA site. At Aurivo, the project has moved from building to running, with GEA providing ongoing service, monitoring and optimization. And at MMPA, experience with advanced process control on the spray dryer is pointing to the next opportunity: extending the approach to its evaporators.

In each case, one step has led to the next. Better plant performance is not delivered by one technology or decision alone. It comes from connecting the full journey. Together, the three projects show how Think Better, Build Better and Run Better connect: Understanding the entire plant shapes what gets built, and experience from running it shows where to look next.

Because a plant never stands still, neither does the work to improve it.