Why Food Production Monitoring Is Essential

Food production monitoring has become a fundamental requirement for companies that want to remain competitive. Without a clear view of production line performance, waste, downtime, and inefficiencies remain invisible—and therefore impossible to eliminate. Yet, in many facilities, production control still relies on Excel spreadsheets, manual data collection, or outdated systems that do not provide real-time visibility.

As Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota Production System, once said: “The worst kind of waste is the one that is not recognized as waste.” Guided by this philosophy, we developed Performance Intelligence: a family of monitoring solutions designed to transform plant data into actionable insights and continuous improvement.

What Is CFT Performance Intelligence?

Performance Intelligence is our digital ecosystem for monitoring and optimizing production lines in the food industry. It is structured around two complementary levels: Asset Monitoring, focused on the performance of individual machines, and Line Monitoring, dedicated to optimizing the entire production line.

Asset Monitoring: Control at the Machine Level

The first layer of Performance Intelligence is powered by MENTIS, an Edge computer that we integrate directly into CFT machines to collect, process, and visualize performance data in real time. MENTIS consists of four specialized applications:

• MENTIS Performance: real-time machine OEE monitoring, featuring intuitive dashboards and detailed CIP reports.
• MENTIS Energy: continuous correlation between energy consumption and production data, enabling the identification and correction of deviations from standard operating conditions.
• MENTIS Maintenance: structured maintenance planning with complete tracking of all maintenance activities.
• MENTIS Condition Monitoring: predictive maintenance for pumps and rotary fillers, providing alerts up to 24 hours before a potential machine stoppage.

To further expand our offering, we are developing CFT AI Apps: vertical artificial intelligence applications designed to further optimize the performance of specific assets, with a planned release in 2027.

Line Monitoring: Monitoring the Entire Production Line

The second layer of Performance Intelligence extends visibility across the entire production line. We offer dedicated vertical solutions for the main food processing segments:

• Digital Tomato: monitoring, forecasting, and optimization of tomato processing lines.
• FruitPulse: the same predictive approach applied to fruit processing lines.
• BatchPulse: production control and traceability for formulated products, from recipe management to batch execution.
• ILLUMINATE: packaging line monitoring with OEE visualization and real-time bottleneck identification.

Delivering Measurable Results in Food Production Monitoring

Our approach goes beyond technology. The ability to read and interpret data—combining process expertise, plant knowledge, and digital intelligence—is what transforms information into a real competitive advantage. Some of the results we have achieved together with our customers include:

• Aseptic filling: reduction of the average filling error to just 56 g against a target of 240 kg, with a direct impact on product quality and waste reduction.
• Line availability: an average increase of 1% in overall line availability, which, on high-capacity production lines, translates into thousands of additional units produced each year.
• Energy efficiency: identification and correction of consumption deviations, restoring standard operating values and delivering measurable cost savings.

Discover How to Optimize Your Production Line Performance

Contact us to learn how our Performance Intelligence solutions can improve OEE, reduce downtime, and optimize energy consumption across your facility.

→ Request a free demo of CFT Performance Intelligence solutions