Taza Chocolate

The Challenge

Taza’s business is growing quickly. After securing an account with a major wholesale retailer, Taza set to increase the pieces of chocolate they produced by nearly 30% while decreasing cost of goods sold (COGS). In order to meet these goals, Taza needed more insight into their production processes.

Much of their manufacturing equipment, however, was analog. While their equipment ran effectively, it was expensive and lacked native connections to the internet. This made it difficult to track key production information during runs.

The Results

Bringing Legacy Machines Online with Analog Machine Monitoring

Using Tulip’s plug-and-play IoT connectivity, Taza attached sensors to analog machines, allowing them to track performance data in real time. With Tulip, Taza now tracks metrics like RPM, cycle time, engine speed, machine efficiency, temperature, and humidity for their entire production line. This data has helped Taza optimize their production processes and create accurate benchmarks for the business. Using Tulip for analogue machine monitoring, Taza now has an data-driven picture of machine uptime and downtime, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), the amount of waste generated by machines, as well as a quantitative picture of quality.

Identifying Bottlenecks at the Source

Before Tulip, Taza struggled with production bottlenecks. When faced with increased demand, their alternative solution was to purchase more machines. With Tulip, Taza was able to identify new bottlenecks, and confirm process inefficiencies that they previously lacked the data to confirm. When bottlenecks do happen, an inline Tulip app allows operators to record the conditions immediately, aiding in root cause analysis. With Tulip, Taza increased the amount of pieces produced per shift by 15%, and improved machine uptime. This, in addition to the money they saved by not purchasing new machines.

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