Tetra Pak Factory OS wins MIMA 2026 Scale! Award, delivering 20% higher efficiency for food manufacturers

GLOBAL – Tetra Pak has won the Microsoft Intelligent Manufacturing Award 2026 in the Scale! category for its Factory OS™ smart factory platform, a solution that enables food and beverage producers to boost overall equipment effectiveness by 20 percent while reducing product waste by 45 percent.

The award, jointly presented by Microsoft and Roland Berger, recognizes intelligent industrial solutions with broad impact across value chains.

Tetra Pak’s Factory OS is a modular suite of smart factory technologies that unifies automation, data, and analytics into a consistent factory-wide operating environment.

It connects equipment regardless of age or supplier, transforming fragmented data into a unified, real-time view.

By the Numbers: The Productivity Impact

According to a Tetra Pak comparative study, highly automated beverage factories achieve 20 percent higher overall equipment effectiveness compared to less automated facilities, reduce product waste by 45 percent, and experience 20 percent fewer packaging line stops.

The platform’s AI-ready foundation turns real-time data into actionable insights, enabling smarter, faster decisions across production lines.

Sean Sims, vice president of automation and solutions at Tetra Pak, noted that the award recognizes the real-world impact of advanced industrial automation.

With Factory OS, producers can turn complexity into clarity and continuously improve performance.

Addressing Industry Challenges

The launch arrives as food and beverage manufacturers face mounting pressures from rising input costs and geopolitical uncertainty.

Factory OS addresses these challenges by enhancing operational resilience, safeguarding product quality, and accelerating digital transformation across facilities of varying digital maturity.

The platform was developed in collaboration with Accenture and is supported by an ecosystem including Siemens and Rockwell Automation.

Its open architecture allows producers to adopt automation at their own pace, scaling up as operations evolve, a critical feature for facilities transitioning from legacy systems.

Recognition at Hannover Messe

Tetra Pak was shortlisted alongside other industrial innovators and presented its solution to an independent jury before being named the Scale! category winner.

The award will be formally presented at Hannover Messe on 22 April 2026.

What This Means for Packaging

For the packaging industry, Factory OS represents a significant step toward fully integrated, data-driven production environments.

By connecting packaging lines with upstream processing operations, the platform enables end-to-end visibility that reduces waste, improves quality consistency, and supports sustainability goals.

As Charles Brand, executive vice president at Tetra Pak, noted, the platform enables producers to build the factory of the future, where resilience, efficiency, and sustainability work in tandem.

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