Case Study: Leading UK Bakeries improves visibility and efficiency with OAL SCADA replacement

SCADA Replacement Improves Data Visibility at Leading UK Bakeries

Leading UK Bakeries, one of the UK’s largest vertically integrated baking and flour milling businesses, needed to modernize an aging 30-year-old PMIS/SCADA setup across six bakery sites. The goal was to improve operational performance through better scheduling, recipe control, product tracking, set points, adherence to plan, yield, waste, and water absorption, while also reducing maintenance and ownership costs. OAL was selected because of its bakery controls experience.

OAL replaced the legacy system with a new SCADA and recipe tracking solution built around Modicon PLCs, Ethernet connectivity for legacy equipment, virtualized SCADA, and thin-client terminal services. The paperless, web-based reporting tools improved visibility across all sites and enabled real-time comparisons, helping the bakeries reduce yield losses, lower raw material usage, and increase capacity through improved scheduling. The project was delivered on schedule, and OAL’s solution provided a more resilient, lower-maintenance platform with better long-term operational insight.