☕ Digital Transformation in Coffee Production: Integrated Data Management Begins! 🚀

[Alper Aktaş]

Arriyadh Roaster Moves Production to the Cloud!​

Arriyadh Roaster, one of Saudi Arabia's leading coffee producers, is taking a revolutionary step in its production processes through a collaboration with Rockwell Automation and GulfNet Solutions. The company is implementing a cloud-based manufacturing system that will consolidate production, inventory, quality, and enterprise data under one roof.

Transparency and Traceability in Production with Plex MES​

Arriyadh Roaster is digitizing its coffee production operations from end to end with Rockwell Automation's Plex Manufacturing Execution System (MES). This system aims to provide production visibility, traceability, and coordination in line with the company's goals of increasing production capacity and adding new coffee products and production lines.

Connected Data is Essential for Expanding Production!​

New production lines and product varieties increase the amount of manufacturing information that needs to be coordinated between operators, production management, and enterprise systems. Arriyadh Roaster chose a cloud-based MES to create a common digital layer to manage this information. The system provides production personnel with real-time information on work in progress, inventory movements, order status, and quality management. Centralizing these data streams aims to reduce information gaps between production activities and high-level planning processes.

MES Unites Production and Enterprise Systems​

Rockwell Automation offers the Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform and MES capabilities. The platform is designed to connect manufacturing operations while supporting interoperability between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) environments. GulfNet Solutions is responsible for a key component of this integration. The system integrator developed middleware that enables information exchange between Plex MES and Arriyadh Roaster's existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This architecture allows information generated on the production floor to be shared with enterprise-level systems instead of being kept in separate data silos. Corresponding ERP information is also presented to production processes, supporting consistent production and business records.

Supporting Production Control and Traceability​

For coffee production, MES provides visibility into the status of production orders, material and inventory movements, work in progress, and quality-related information. Real-time production data also supports planning by allowing operators and managers to identify deviations or changes in production status without waiting for manually compiled reports.

This project combines Rockwell Automation's manufacturing software with GulfNet Solutions' local system integration capabilities and Arriyadh Roaster's production requirements. This implementation is one of the first partner-led Plex implementations in Saudi Arabia. The architecture demonstrates how an MES and an existing ERP platform can be connected via middleware to create coordinated information flows between shop floor operations and enterprise management as manufacturing capacity expands.