Case Study: RCL Foods achieves 20% higher throughput and reduced downtime with Schneider Electric EcoStruxure Plant

South African food producer uses EcoStruxure "4 Plant to help modernize and digitize aging sugar mill

RCL Foods’ Pongola sugar mill had an aging proprietary DCS nearly 30 years old that caused frequent production outages and quality issues—about 33–40 blackouts per 39‑week season—so the company launched a multi‑year DCS migration to find a scalable, remote‑accessible, backward‑compatible solution. RCL Foods selected Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Plant as the platform to modernize the mill and meet its goals for reliability, expandability and reuse of existing infrastructure.

Schneider Electric delivered an EcoStruxure Plant solution—featuring connected products (Modicon X80 I/O, ConneXium switches, Magelis HMIs), edge control (Modicon M580) and AVEVA System Platform/Historian—implemented by Control Software Solutions. The upgrade gave operators full remote visibility and faster diagnostics, cut season blackouts from roughly 33–40 to three, reduced downtime and increased throughput by 20%, while empowering staff to make data‑driven decisions.

RCL Foods

Alan Williamson

Manufacturing Executive Pongola Sugar Mill