Manufacturing Partner
Mancini’s Bakery – A Pittsburgh-area staple, Mancini’s Bakery is a family-owned business that has been baking bread using old-world techniques since 1926. Known for their Italian twists, pepperoni rolls, and hoagie sticks, they pride themselves on fresh-baked bread products without preservatives, delivered daily.
Learn more: www.mancinisbakery.com
Challenge
To meet more stringent food regulations and open access to additional markets, Mancini’s Bakery needed a robust solution for end-to-end traceability, recall capability, and production data visibility and management. Their existing systems lacked the connectivity and automation required for visibility into operations and did not meet the digital infrastructure standards necessary for compliance. A scalable Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) solution and advanced data collection methods were essential to move the bakery toward audit readiness and a smart manufacturing future.
Solution
Penn State’s Digital Foundry at New Kensington (DFNK) partnered with Mancini’s Bakery to develop and validate a two-stage approach, starting with system discovery and design, and culminating in the development of a prototype MES and SCADA system.
In the first stage of development, DFNK conducted a comprehensive current-state assessment and value stream mapping exercise to identify operational inefficiencies and define the requirements for a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) smart manufacturing system. The team designed a prototype MES and SCADA architecture to demonstrate product-level traceability for seven bakery items, incorporating requirements for industry standards and auditing.
In the second stage, a bench-scale demonstration of the prototype system was deployed at DFNK’s Digital Learning and Demonstration Lab. This prototype validated the system’s technical feasibility and tracked real-time data across the full production lifecycle.
Following the prototype, DFNK initiated a Smart Factory Foundation project to install Level 0 and 1 automation architecture at Mancini’s McKees Rocks facility for real-world data collection and validation of the MVP. This included:
- PLC connectivity via OPC UA and Modbus
- Integration of Banner IO gear for machine-to-machine communication
- RFID and barcode scanning network validation
- Tablet and operator dashboard connectivity through the Inductive Automation Gateway
A prototype SCADA system, connected through DFNK’s Portable De-risking (POD) Station, enabled live data collection and validated communication protocols, data logging, and control architecture before transitioning to a permanent solution and outlay of implementation and integration costs.
Impact
Mancini’s Bakery now has a validated Smart Factory foundation that is implementation-ready, with documented specifications and a roadmap to scale to a full MES and SCADA system with one of DFNK’s Technology Partners. The prototype demonstrated compliance-ready traceability for seven products, enabling compliance and auditor assessments, and reduced the risk for full-scale implementation.
The project empowered Mancini’s to:
- Establish the framework and architecture for ISA-95 Level 0–2 automation
- Improve visibility into production operations and operational efficiencies
- Prepare for more stringent food safety compliance with a scalable, auditable digital system
With the foundational work complete, Mancini’s is positioned to implement a permanent, enterprise-ready Smart Factory solution that supports operational excellence and significant market expansion.
“The Penn State Digital Foundry at New Kensington has turned the vision of a smart factory into reality. They helped a 100-year-old legacy company become Pittsburgh’s most technologically advanced bakery. DFNK didn’t just make this project possible—they made it practical. They met us where we were, bridging modern and legacy equipment, and delivered a solution that gave us ‘Track & Trace’ capabilities and made us smarter and more efficient. With DFNK, it’s easy to imagine Mancini’s thriving for the next hundred years.”
– Nick Mancini Hartner, Vice President of Mancini’s Bakery
