In a 2-year transformation journey, Keurig Dr Pepper has implemented a host of advanced manufacturing tech

A Smart Industry Industrial Transformation Award winner in the Manufacturing category, the North American beverage company has modernized its network and recently implemented tech such as MOM and a digital twin pilot as well as MES, live performance dashboards, machine learning, predictive maintenance, and more.
April 6, 2026
2 min read

What you’ll learn:

  • The company embarked about two years ago on a network-modernization journey.
  • KDP has implemented a wide range of manufacturing technologies, including MES, live performance metrics dashboards, machine learning, and predictive maintenance.
  • IT and OT are now largely networked utilizing ethernet, however there are significant differences in things like protocols, total number of clients, DHCP vs. static and payload.
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Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of stories and videos this week on the nine winners of Smart Industry’s inaugural Industrial Transformation Awards, which are sponsored by Cisco.

Beverage producer Keurig Dr Pepper boasts 30-plus manufacturing sites that make such hallmark brands as Dr Pepper and Canada Dry sodas and Keurig coffees.

To accomplish this feat and much more, the company embarked about two years ago on a network-modernization journey so it could reach “devices deep down into the machine network from the main network” and gain visibility into its networks for maintenance purposes, KDP’s Adrianus “Arno” Thijssen said in an interview.

He is senior principal engineer-process and automation at Keurig Dr Pepper, which for this digital transformation accomplishment won its Industrial Transformation Award in the Manufacturing category from Smart Industry.

See also: The full list of ITA award-winners

KDP has implemented a wide range of manufacturing technologies, including a manufacturing execution system (MES), live performance metrics dashboards, machine learning, predictive maintenance and “with a recent investment in a new [manufacturing operations management, or MOM] platform and a digital twin pilot, our journey is picking up speed,” he said.

What we see is that all these initiatives require a lot more information to flow through our infrastructure, so I started a proactive program to ready our manufacturing network to accommodate this.

- Adrianus “Arno” Thijssen, senior principal engineer-process and automation, Keurig Dr Pepper

“What we see is that all these initiatives require a lot more information to flow through our infrastructure, so I started a proactive program to ready our manufacturing network to accommodate this,” Thijssen added, noting that KDP is searching for tech solutions—and the money to fund them—to cut mean time to repair (MTTR), thereby realizing cost reductions or avoidance.

See also: State of Initiative: Mixed signals on AI in investment plans, production systems, survey shows

“One of the interesting things I learned is that even though both IT and OT are now largely networked utilizing ethernet, there are significant differences in things like protocols, total number of clients, DHCP vs static and payload,” he added. “This brings unique and different challenges during the design process of such networks."

See also: Crystal Ball 2026 Series

Thijssen continued: “This journey would not have been possible without the unwavering support of the entire Cisco team, from commercial to technical and everything in between it has been a true collaboration the entire way. Besides that, both our manufacturing engineering teams, and our IT teams have joined forces and generated outcome-based strategies that serve the business.”

About the Author

Scott Achelpohl
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Scott Achelpohl

Head of Content

I've come to Smart Industry after stints in business-to-business journalism covering U.S. trucking and transportation for FleetOwner, a sister website and magazine of SI’s at Endeavor Business Media, and branches of the U.S. military for Navy League of the United States. I'm a graduate of the University of Kansas and the William Allen White School of Journalism with many years of media experience inside and outside B2B journalism. I'm a wordsmith by nature, and I edit Smart Industry and report and write all kinds of news and interactive media on the digital transformation of manufacturing.

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