- 15 min
When you speak to the teams at Multotec and Advansys, one thing becomes clear very quickly: this isn’t a story about a single project. It’s a story about a journey, a growing ecosystem of digital initiatives, ideas, and innovations built on Inductive Automation’s Ignition platform.
As the ideas continue to emerge, so do the results.
Prefer watching instead of reading? Watch the full case study here.
Meet the Team Behind the Transformation
Renier van Rooyen, Engineering Executive at Multotec, helps paint the picture.
Multotec, founded in South Africa nearly 50 years ago, has evolved from a small polyurethane panel manufacturer into a global brand that produces hundreds of products for the mineral processing industry. With operations in South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Canada, China, Germany, and Australia, the scale is enormous, and so are the challenges.
Partnering with them is CJ Barnard, Lead Engineer at Advansys, whose team is responsible for bringing many of Multotec’s ideas to life.
“If you can dream it, they can build it,” Renier says.
And from WhatsApp messages to late-night video calls, they often do.
Building a Unified Digital Platform
With multiple factories in Kempton Park, Spartan, and beyond, Multotec required a unified SCADA platform that could scale, integrate, and evolve in tandem with the business.
Ignition became that platform.
The Architecture in a Nutshell
- A central Ignition gateway with redundancy
- SQL databases for transactional data
- Canary Historian for long-term time-series storage
- Flow software for reporting
- Integrations with JDE (Oracle JD Edwards)
- Connections to power meters, generators, solar systems, and hundreds of IoT devices
This shared infrastructure now supports multiple major solutions, including energy monitoring, discrete manufacturing, production tracking, ERP integration, and more.
Modernising Manufacturing: From Discrete Machines to Smart Operations
Multotec’s rubber press shop is an excellent example of the capabilities this platform offers.
Integrating Machines, Operators, and ERP
Many of the machines operate independently with their own PLCs, but Ignition ties them together. Operators now see:
- Work orders pulled directly from JDE via RESTful APIs
- Job metadata, such as customer info, tooling, and cycle times
- Progress indicators and countdowns
- Reasons for machine or job changes
If a part fails quality control, the system automatically adjusts the remaining work order quantity, a process that previously required manual intervention.
This wasn’t just a digital facelift; it fundamentally changed how the team works.
Visibility Into Performance & OEE
Each press is represented visually on a shop-floor dashboard. Integrated Flow reports show:
- The machine states over time
- Downtime categories
- OEE insights
- Trends via embedded Axiom clients
The data reveals exactly where optimisation opportunities lie.
Material Tracking and Costing: Closing the Loop
Raw materials for rubber manufacturing pass over a single scale.
Advansys built a dedicated Ignition interface that links each measurement to:
- Work orders
- Machines
- Operators
Now Multotec can reconcile actual vs. expected consumption, exposing scrap, waste, and costing inaccuracies.
If the ERP system indicates that a job requires 50kg of compound but operators consistently use 52kg, the system captures this discrepancy and flags it for review.
Energy Monitoring Across 25 Facilities
What started as a load-shedding survival tactic has become one of Multotec’s most valuable digital programs.
When Eskom offered a deal to avoid blackouts if a 30% load reduction could be achieved, Multotec knew they needed measurement before control.
Today they monitor:
- 25 facilities
- 19 generators
- Solar contributions
- Grid imports and exports
- Boilers, geysers, HVAC systems
- CT data (after many painful lessons!)
Hundreds of Shelly switches give granular control, right down to individual office air conditioners.
“If a meeting goes on too long,” Renier jokes, “I can turn off the aircon from my laptop.”
Generator Monitoring (A Game-Changer)
Fuel levels, block temperatures, and running hours are all visible from the Ignition mobile app. The property manager monitors hotspots and refills proactively, avoiding dangerous run-dry situations and production losses.
Turning Industrial Data Into Business Intelligence
All the data collected in Ignition, Flow, and Canary feeds into Multotec’s BI platform of choice: QlikView.
Because the data is well-structured, QlikView delivers powerful insights, including:
- Peak demand times
- Solar-to-grid ratios
- Facility benchmarking
- Energy behaviour analysis
This becomes the foundation for better operational decisions.
What’s Next?
The journey continues.
Upcoming initiatives include:
- Mobile apps powered by Ignition to digitise previously manual, clipboard-based processes
- Quality control systems that incorporate PLC data, like temperature and pressure, into release certificates
- Golden batch comparisons for every machine cycle
- Expanded ERP write-back
- Further standardisation across business units
There is no finish line, only continuous improvement.
What Value has the System Delivered?
When asked to quantify the benefits, Renier emphasises that while they haven’t put everything into rands yet, the impact is clear:
- Prevented generator run-dry incidents
- Increased press shop productivity
- Real-time insights into downtime, maintenance, and utilisation
- Energy stability across properties
- Richer decision-making through BI analytics
And perhaps most importantly, visibility.
“You learn a great deal about yourself,” Renier says, “about your energy behaviour, your production behaviour, your processes. That’s where the value begins.”
A Digital Transformation With No End Date
From manufacturing optimisation to energy resilience to ERP integration, Multotec’s digital journey is proof of what’s possible when a business commits to open, flexible technology and a long-term vision.
It’s not one project.
It’s dozens, and counting.
And with every new idea, the journey continues.