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Food & BeverageActiveFactory software, InTouch HMI, Wonderware Equipment OperationsModule, Wonderware System Platform South African Breweries

“During the design of the

Conceptual Functional

Specification, we designed the

system as if anything was possible

and ignored any constraints. We

designed a system based purely on

user requirements and with plenty

of extra functionality that does

not exist in the current plant. The

management team at Newlands

and the users were given a

presentation of what the plans

were. While everyone loved the

design, we were not certain that it

could be converted into a working

software solution.”

Stuart Yates, Process Control Manager, SAB Ltd

Wish list first, technology second at SAB’s Newlandsbreweryby Wonderware Southern Africa

VALUE DRIVERS

Goals

• Create a recipe managementsystem will involve the replacementof existing PLC hardware systems andexisting software solutions;

• Create a new production datastorage system that will improvereporting and alarming.

Challenges

• New PLC replacement should becompatible with existing Wonderwareplant software;

• Be able to create and modify trial

recipes, adjust brew volumes.

KEY METRICS

Wonderware Solutions

• ActiveFactory software;

• InTouch HMI;

• Wonderware Equipment OperationsModule;

• Wonderware System Platform.

Results

• Improved reports on historicalinformation, alarming and webreporting makes production moretraceable;

• Easier management of recipesincreases performance andproductivity.

Company Overview The South African Breweries Ltd.(Newlands Brewery) – Sandown, SouthAfricaSAB Ltd. is the South African operation ofSABMiller plc and currently produces 26million hectolitres of beer per annumand sells 14 million hl of other beveragesthrough its soft drinks division, ABI.Newlands Brewery, located near CapeTown, has a capacity of 4.5 million hlusing 2 brewhouses and a cellar of 118vessels. It brews most SAB brands ofbeer and Redd’s flavored alcoholic drinks.With the acquisition of Grolsch, SABMillerplc has become the largest brewer in theworld by volume. Carling Black Label wasvoted SA’s Favorite Beer, followed by CastleLager and Hansa Pilsener in the SundayTimes / Markinor “Top Brands” survey.

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SAB’s recipe management processes are the key toproduct consistency and customer satisfaction. Whenit came to designing a new system for the Newlands

brewery, therefore, technology constraints were thrownout the window in favor of satisfying the plant’s idealrequirements.

The need

SAB needed a design for a recipe management systemfor the Newlands brew house upgrade project. Thiswould need to address certain issues and considerationssuch as:■ The replacement of 7 existing PLCs with new SiemensS7 PLCs which would work in conjunction withWonderware InTouch Human Machine Interface (HMI)and ArchestrA technology to implement a managementsystem for the creation and modification of recipes;■ The ability to create and modify trial recipes;■ Dynamically adjusting brew volumes due to under orover malt batching. If brews are over-batched, then thesystem needs to compensate by recalculating new brewvolumes,■ Storing production data – this would be done with theWonderware Equipment Operations Module (previouslyknown as Wonderware Production Events Module - PEM);■ The scope of the project included being able to viewhistorical information, gets the information into adatabase and publish web reports for clients. SinceWonderware Equipment Operations Module becameavailable at this time, it was decided that it could be usedto good effect in this role;■ The implementation of an auto recipe loader. Recipesmust be created automatically. The process must requestinformation from a specific recipe, which will, in turn,create another recipe and trigger the next process;Intelligent alarming objects – operators don’t have timeto evaluate each and every alarm, which meant thatalarm handling had to be improved;■ Intelligent trending per brew per vessel as per the oldsystem but with added functionality. ■ These needs would be addressed through the use ofintelligent ArchestrA objects for the implementation of

recipe management systems, intelligent alarming,historical information and other applications.

System description

“We started the design with the raw material intake area,”says Abraham Vorster, project engineer at systemintegrator Quad Automation.“Material is off-loaded from train trucks into the silosaccording to the ArchestrA recipe object. The relevantinformation is captured by a PLC and stored in anArchestrA history object (see figure 2). This object storesintake history for 150 train truck offloads (malt type, date,actual mass, etc.) as well as the information for up to 100reclaims. The recipe loader object combines theinformation from the history and recipe objects beforesending it to a third party batch server that runs theprocess via the PLC. The sequence of subsequent events isonce more stored in the ArchestrA history object.”

Reclaim recipesBrew masters create master recipes, which includemaster brands and sub-brands (instances of the masterbrands). Changes to master brand recipes areautomatically propagated to the sub-brands. The recipeobject can hold up to 100 recipes and, this, together withthe recipe parameters can be increased easily and withminimal engineering effort. The reclaim recipes alonetotal about 4500 values. This excludes the recipes for theMash Tun, Lauter Tun, Underback and Wort Kettle. Withthe malt reclaim recipes, provision is made for a recoverycalculation in case of a break down or aborted batch.The calculation includes what needs to be done tocomplete the batch.

Trial recipesTrial recipes are created by making a copy of a sub-brandrecipe but with altered parameters (e.g. trial malt types)according to the brew master’s directions. Silos can beassigned “trial” status and the brew master can schedulethe trial recipes to be run automatically when convenient.

Mills recipesAfter logging in, the brew master checks the amount ofreclaimed material, selects the required brew number,

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Food & BeverageActiveFactory software, InTouch HMI, Wonderware Equipment Operations

Module, Wonderware System Platform

Figure 1: Brew house plant overview (a “tun” is a large beer cask)

Figure 2: Design phase information flow

SAB-Newlands-EOM.qxp:SAB-Newlands-EOM 30-07-2008 15:11 Pagina 23

changes selected parameters, has the system recalculatethe amount of raw materials needed and starts theexecution of the mill recipe. The auto recipe loaderobject will create the Mash Tun recipe automatically.

Mash Tun recipesThe Mash Tun recipe is created like the others. Thefunction exists for the operator to manually create arecipe should the auto recipe loader object fail or if abatch needs to be recreated.

History informationThe history object holds all the history for vessel-to-vessel transfer. “This object stores history for all the brewsthroughout the brew house,” says Vorster. “The autorecipe loader object will use transferred information fromthe previous vessel. For example, the recipe loader for theLauter Tun will check to see what the Mash Tun has doneso that it can calculate new operational parameters forthe Lauter Tun.”

Intelligent alarmingPreviously, operators had to scan through a multitude ofalarms to pinpoint a particular problem. “We developedan alarm object that flashes either yellow for a non-critical alarm that won’t stop production (see figure 3) orred for a critical alarm that will stop production,” saysVorster. “As an operator clicks on a displayed alarm permain section of the plant (1), another display appears (2)detailing the specific alarms for that section. Clicking onone of these causes the window where the alarm occurredto be displayed (3). In this way, three steps take theoperator directly to the cause of the problem rather thanhaving to scroll through a lengthy and sometimesconfusing list of alarms and warnings.”

Web reporting“Our scope was to make sure that production data waslogged into a database and we decided to use

Wonderware Equipment Operations Module objects whichwould make engineering easier,” adds Vorster. “TheWonderware Equipment Operations Module database,which is ISA-95 compliant, stores, specified informationinto its database based on triggers. Whether used fortracking consumption, materials, consumables orproduction information such as the temperature of theMash Tun at a certain point, the information is thenreadily available for extraction and manipulation.”

SAB wanted specific reports and used their ownresources to generate these web reports fromWonderware Equipment Operations Module’s database.Reports can be generated by silo, data and malt type forexample.

Intelligent trendingPart of the specification for the project was to retain thefunctionality that existed in the old system. Operatorscan select a start and end date for a specified brew andthe updated trending information for that period is sentto ActiveFactory software for review.

Realised benefits

■ Easy management of recipes – Brewing can adjustany recipes as well as create and modify trial recipeswhile the various processes are aware of each other’sperformance and productivity through the Recipe Loaderobjects;■ Easy reporting – This was made easier with PEMthrough the triggering of an event causing theinformation to be stored in an ISA-95 compliant databasefor easy retrieval and collation;■ Greatly improved historical review - Operators donot need to go through the tedious process that theywere used to in order to determine what happened intheir processes. They now have instant access to such keyinformation as intake and reclaimed quantities, Mash Tunperformance, etc.;■ Easier trending analysis – Operators can easilyspecify a “sliding time portal” through which they canview key performance trends for the various processes;■ Improved alarm handling – Operators can now getto the cause of the problem in three quick steps ratherthan scrolling through reams of alarms and warnings.

“Perhaps the greatest benefit is that the system satisfiedall the user requirements that were based solely on theirneeds and nothing else. Which just goes to show thattoday’s software technology is equal to the task ofdelivering whatever results is demanded of it,” concludesVorster.

This document was realized thanks to the support of: Abraham Vorster, project engineer,

Quad Automation, ArchestrA-certified system integrator.

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Food & BeverageActiveFactory software, InTouch HMI, Wonderware Equipment OperationsModule, Wonderware System Platform

Figure 3: Intelligent alarming showing operator shortcut to theroot of the problem

SAB-Newlands-EOM.qxp:SAB-Newlands-EOM 30-07-2008 15:11 Pagina 24