An agricultural cooperative in Florida, with farmland, processing, and bottling plants owned by more than 1,000 individual Florida growers, cultivates more than 50,000 acres of citrus. They are responsible for juicing eleven million pounds of fruit every twenty-four hours. With so many people working in this cooperative and being the third-largest orange juice maker in America, having reliable and accurate measurements in their pressure applications is critical for smooth operations. Unfortunately, this plant – until recently – was unable to obtain consistent and accurate pressure measurements on many of their applications, including refrigerated storage tanks, tank unloading pump discharge, cooling tower head pressure, and more.
The existing pressure instruments, previously preferred by the engineering department on hundreds of processes across their 60-acre facility, had been experiencing issues. These devices started to have catastrophic failures when the electronics would malfunction even though they were installed correctly.
In addition to reliability concerns, the sensor interface was outdated making them complicated to work with. To make things more challenging, it was difficult to get timely support when these issues came up. Ultimately, technicians had to go through extensive troubleshooting and recommissioning processes, requiring expensive production pauses.
To solve this issue, plant technicians started replacing the instruments as they failed with the VEGABAR 82. The CERTEC ceramic measuring cell is not affected by the corrosive properties of the materials in a citrus plant, making it a reliable solution, and the instruments are easy to commission and troubleshoot via Bluetooth.
Because of the trust in VEGA’s Pro-Series VEGABAR 82, opening a dialogue around the Basic Series VEGABAR 38 for their other low demand measurements was easy. The VEGABAR 38’s reliability, ease of use, CERTEC measuring cell, and 360 degree light ring made it an easy decision.
Now, operations personnel don’t have to go through lengthy troubleshooting process and VEGA’s field service team is always available 24/7 for any questions or concerns they have.
Since switching to the VEGABAR 38 and VEGABAR 82, the cooperative has seen major increases in efficiency. The precise and reliable measurements of the pressure transmitters meant savings on maintenance costs and time, allowing the plant to focus on other concerns. Physically hardwiring to connect to each device has been eliminated with the VEGA Tools app and Bluetooth connectivity. Now, plant operators can monitor and manage multiple processes at the same time remotely, increasing overall efficiency and throughput. All customer support headaches have been eliminated, with VEGA’s support team providing responses and solutions promptly.
And the best part? Operations can be run continuously without stopping for broken sensors, recalibration, and lengthy troubleshooting concerns. With multiple successful product installations at the facility, the cooperative has expanded their relationship with VEGA to include radar and point level sensors and recommends VEGA as their preferred instrumentation provider for any projects they outsource to other companies.
Process automation provides orange juice agricultural cooperatives the time they need to focus on other concerns across the facility. That’s why it’s critical for plants to choose instrumentation they can depend on. That’s why this plant this plant chose VEGA’s measurement solutions.