Founded in 1952, Schwan’s has a frozen foods heritage with iconic brands like Mrs. Smith’s and Edwards brand pies. While being a legacy is good for brands, legacy equipment is not necessarily ideal. Like some pet food brands, Schwan’s faced decades-old controls and obsolete hardware at its manufacturing sites in Sybil, Oklahoma. Schwan’s turned to NorthWind to modernize its plant with an automation upgrade using equipment and software like what would be used in a dog, cat or other pet food production facility.
Schwan’s Oklahoma facility carried mechanical baggage: programmable logic controllers (PLCs) dating back multiple generations, outdated RSV32 graphics and an antiquated Windows NT base system that no longer received security updates.
“RSV32 has been out of support for more than a little while,” John Kreighbaum, principal project engineer for Schwan's Food Company, said during his presentation at the Northwind’s AI & Digital Transformation Seminar in Mayetta, Kansas.
Plus, a key PC allowed a critical vulnerability for plant operations because it ran an old operating system without security updates.
“Windows NT, that is what came before Windows 2000,” Kreighbaum said, “So, yeah, that's pretty risky since it has not been supported for about 20 years.”
Making things yet more difficult to understand, control panels were modified repeatedly over decades. But documentation was sparse, putting tribal knowledge at a premium. Panels lacked modern labeling, and spare parts were hard to source.
Phased engineering and modernization approach; Control upgrades and standardization
NorthWind’s first step was an exhaustive engineering study in 2023. Over six months, technicians cataloged and evaluated each control panel, segmenting them into categories: those suitable for minimal intervention, those requiring retrofitting, and those needing full replacement. They prioritized long–lead‑time parts already vulnerable to supply delays.
“Every dollar you spend on the front end pays you back,” Blake Bennett, NorthWind project manager said during his portion of the presentation.
At the heart of the upgrade was modernization of control hardware and software: obsolete machines were replaced, and the entire system migrated to Ethernet/IP communication. The messy mix of legacy networks gave way to a streamlined, maintainable architecture.
RSView 32 graphics were replaced with Ignition (Inductive Automation) graphics and centralized supervisory control. Standardized tag-based naming was applied across thousands of points, making it easier to keep track of graphics, PLCs and documentation.
Dramatic reduction in HMI complexity; Enhanced diagnostics, alarms and reporting
Pre‑upgrade, the plant had 18 separate applications, 36 human-machine interfaces (HMIs), and over 300 screens, many of them redundant, repetitive or superfluous. NorthWind consolidated all functionality into a single Ignition application with just six HMIs and fewer than 25 screens. This reduces operator training time, accelerates troubleshooting, and cuts overhead.
“It's cutting a lot of overhead,” Kreighbaum said. “You're cutting a lot of training with operators. This is what standardization brings.”
Standard dashboards and customizable user dashboards give operators both a unified view of the plant and tailored visibility into their specific areas of responsibility.
Beyond visualization, NorthWind implemented alarm analytics and reporting capabilities. Operators can now see trends, like repeated valve faults, and examine top alarms by duration or frequency. Automatic shift‑end reports summarize production quantities, line efficiency and top alarms. These tools not only help maintain uptime, but also guide proactive maintenance.
Project outcomes and future outlook
Schwan’s gained a stable, supportable automation platform that avoids frequent “fire‑chasing,” Kreighbaum said.
The facility now serves as a standard template for future rollouts, whether mixers, dryers, or even new lines.
“We hit all the project goals,” he said. “We’ve really stabilized that plant.”
NorthWind's strategy, front‑loaded engineering, one‑vendor coordination, and reuse of sequencing logic, led to smooth commissioning and accelerated ROI. The internal templates and widget library built during the project now serve broader corporate standards and future expansions.
Looking ahead, NorthWind and Schwan’s are evaluating additional upgrades, including mixers and dryers, targeted for 2026.
