How a Common Data Infrastructure is Helping a Multinational Packaging Leader Meet its Net Zero Goals
We are celebrating World Earth Day all month long and recognize that sustainability isn’t just about using eco-friendly materials — it’s about making smarter choices in how we connect, operate, optimize, and innovate. To kick things off, this first post in our 2025 Environmental Sustainability Blog Series explores how a multinational company in the packaging industry is leveraging TOP Server to drive efficiency, improve productivity, and help support its sustainability goals.
Operating in 40+ countries, this company provides innovative, sustainable, and high-quality packaging. With a commitment to 100% recyclable or reusable packaging by 2025 and net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the company continuously seeks ways to optimize operations and reduce its environmental impact.
By leveraging real-time data, the company minimizes overproduction, scrap, and material waste, and reduces unnecessary machine runtime to lower energy consumption. Improved visibility across operations ensures a more resilient and sustainable manufacturing process.
Industrial Data Integration and Standardization Challenges
This multinational company faced significant industrial data integration and standardization challenges, requiring a solution that could scale across multiple sites while ensuring consistent and reliable data management. With diverse control systems manufacturers and legacy systems in use, standardizing communication between controllers and devices was essential.
Additionally, interoperability across sites was a priority, as seamless data integration was needed to accommodate various technologies while maintaining flexibility for site-specific requirements. Furthermore, there are shared engineering support resources between plants, and having a common platform was a must to reduce training costs and wasted time from those resources having to know how to use multiple software solutions.
Without a centralized system based on a common platform, detecting inefficiencies and optimizing production across locations was difficult, limiting real-time decision-making and overall operational performance.
TOP Server: The Right Solution for Standardized Communication
To address these challenges, the company implemented TOP Server across 25 plants in the United States, enabling standardized communication and streamlined operations with a common solution. The company operates 51 TOP Server licenses, supporting efficient data management and seamless interoperability across its facilities.
“Software Toolbox’s solutions, particularly TOP Server, have been a critical part of our whole architecture within our SCADA and MES. The reliability of the product, compared to others, stands out, and the team feels comfortable with the way support is provided and how upgrades simplify the process. We use TOP Server everywhere in every plant—it is the foundation of our OPC servers.” – Controls Engineering Manager
These TOP Server industrial device connectivity solutions integrate and exchange critical production data with AVEVA System Platform and AVEVA Manufacturing Execution System, helping the company streamline operations and reduce energy consumption in alignment with its sustainability objectives. This has led to a 3% improvement in production cycle time and a 2% increase in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) by enabling real-time, centralized access to production data.
The Advantages of a Common Connectivity Solution
By adopting a multi-site TOP Server solution, the company has streamlined connectivity across its facilities by standardizing communication between PLCs (including Siemens, Rockwell, Omron, and Modicon), SCADA, MES, and ERP systems. This approach:
- Reduces the need for custom integration, accelerating new equipment deployment.
- Ensures all 25 sites use the same drivers and configurations, minimizing compatibility issues.
- Simplifies licensing, making the implementation of updates and patches more efficient.
- Uses common data tags across locations, improving operational efficiency and making horizontal scaling easier.
- Reduces training and maintenance costs across all sites and delivers efficiencies for engineering support resources that travel to and work with multiple sites.
The Sustainability Commitment and Beyond
The company’s sustainability efforts are directly tied to its ability to scale and execute quickly, leveraging extensive connectivity built over the past three years. By integrating data from sensors, ITUs, PLCs, and machines, the company consolidates information to enhance AI-driven analytical models for improved efficiency.
“This is what we’re looking for when scaling—quick analysis on how we run our AI/ML models. TOP Server helps us scale and push all data into a standard format. That’s exactly what we expect: shorter engineering, faster deployment, immediate results, less waste, and better sustainability. – Controls Engineering Manager
Beyond sustainability, reliability is key—ensuring seamless data consolidation across numerous devices while maintaining uptime and availability. With TOP Server, new equipment can be effortlessly integrated, enabling faster deployment into analytical models and accelerating sustainability initiatives.
How are you leveraging industrial data to drive sustainability? We can help. Schedule a call today with our subject matter experts to request a consultation.
