The Wonderware Historian Client in New Belgium Brewing Regulatory Compliance

 

New Belgium Brewing is regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for compliance and taxes

"A lot of our accountants believe it or not, use the Wonderware Historian Client to extract the data for batches produced and alcohol content because that is integrated with their formulas for the computation of taxes. We even have it down to the janitor using the Historian Client to determine the temperatures in the rooms and what needs to be cleaned or not and which areas have been used. Were also saving lots of energy by being able to analyze where it is going and how to optimize it. Energy, Water, Cleaning resources. 

I would say that it is probably one of the most used tools throughout our Enterprise. At least for our production folks, I am not talking about sales folks, but the production, accounting, quality assurance and IT folks are using the Wonderware Historian Client very heavily."

Igor Valuyev, Chief Electrical and Automation Engineer, New Belgium Brewing Company

More Information

For more information on New Belgium Brewing and the Wonderware products used in the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, please visit the following links:

1. The Wonderware Food and Beverage page
2. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
3. Wonderware InTouch
4. New Belgium Brewing Homepage
5. New Belgium Brewing Sustainability

 

Better Visibility Brings Increased Efficiency and Quality at New Belgium Brewing

Better Visibility Brings Increased Efficiency and Quality

The automation system at New Belgium Brewing using Wonderware software provides extensive “track and trace” capability and is a natural fit with the brewery's conservation and performance goals.

With the new solution, any bottle or tank of beer can be tracked back to all of its inputs – finding 100% of them within 30 minutes. It uses Key Performance Indicator (KPI) scorecards to provide immediate information about how each shift is performing as well as how the plant is doing on a monthly or yearly basis. This real-time visibility is critical because it enables operators to devote their resources to solving the right problems.

“From the administrative perspective, we save a lot of time. And from a people’s perspective, we save a lot of frustrations. That’s the number one benefit.” 

Igor Valuyev, Chief Electrical and Automation Engineer, New Belgium Brewing Company 

In addition to providing more reliable and timely data, the system also aids in enhanced analysis, which has lead to increased quality control. Product deviations are caught much earlier, trouble shooting is faster and response times for corrections have improved. Control charts are used to predict the longer-term outcome of process changes. In a business where there is no scrap – low-quality product literally goes down the drain – Wonderware software is helping to make a significant difference in product consistency.

“We are striving for quality and part of the quality is being able to make intelligent decisions. I would say that quality has increased.” 

Igor Valuyev, Chief Electrical and Automation Engineer, New Belgium Brewing Company 

More Information

For more information on New Belgium Brewing and the Wonderware products used in the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, please visit the following links:

1. The Wonderware Food and Beverage page
2. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
3. Wonderware InTouch
4. New Belgium Brewing Homepage
5. New Belgium Brewing Sustainability

 

Great Business Metrics at New Belgium Brewing

The solution that New Belgium Brewing is using to produce great beer and at the same time help achieve their sustainability goals has created great business metrics. Let's list a few:

1. The Wonderware based solution helped in the efficient and sustainable production of more than 600,000 barrels (18 million gallons) of beer annually
2. The methane rich biogas byproduct from the wastewater plant is now captured and converted into electricity, producing 15 percent of New Belgium’s operating power requirements 
3. The solar photovoltaic panels installed on the roof of the bottling plant are able to produce up to 200 KW 
4. New Belgium Brewing is the first US brewery to acquire 100 percent of its purchased operating electricity from wind power 

Not bad for a craft brewery based in Colorado.

More Information

For more information on New Belgium Brewing and the Wonderware products used in the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, please visit the following links:

1. The Wonderware Food and Beverage page
2. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
3. Wonderware InTouch
4. New Belgium Brewing Homepage
5. New Belgium Brewing Sustainability

 

What makes working at New Belgium Brewing unique?

What makes working at New Belgium Brewing unique?

The thing that I think is unique and what I like best about New Belgium Brewing company is they give us the tools to perform efficiently, they give us the input to projects to make sure that projects are sustainable and they’re as efficient as possible… and they give us the support to make sure that these things are followed through on, as well.

Brandon Weaver

Lead Process Water Treatment Technician

New Belgium Brewing

More Information

For more information on New Belgium Brewing and the Wonderware products used in the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, please visit the following links:

1. The Wonderware Food and Beverage page
2. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
3. Wonderware InTouch
4. New Belgium Brewing Homepage
5. New Belgium Brewing Sustainability

 

A Smart Approach to Energy Management at New Belgium Brewing

New Belgium Brewing has incorporated the “Smart Grid” to manage its technologies and equipment. This allows for load shedding (i.e., intentionally engineered electrical power outages), when the strain on the municipal power grid is too high. The Smart Grid delivers tangible benefits to both the brewery and the community. Technical approaches were developed using Wonderware software to help New Belgium Brewing maximize its Smart Grid initiatives.

"The Smart Grid provides the internal metering that lets us know how much energy we are using throughout the process. The Wonderware software helps us communicate with our local utility to inform them immediately what we are using and communicate with us when we need to shed load.”

Jennifer V. Orgolini, Sustainability Steward, New Belgium Brewing 

Using the Smart Grid gives New Belgium the strength to grow its business and improve the welfare of its employees while helping to protect the environment in a cost efficient manner 

With the help of Wonderware software, New Belgium Brewing protects the environment while maintaining a safe and sustainable business. The journey toward sustainable operations is never ending. New Belgium Brewing is continuing to improve its carbon footprint and hopes to reduce greenhouse emissions by 25 percent by the year 2015.

 

More Information

For more information on New Belgium Brewing and the Wonderware products used in the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, please visit the following links:

1. The Wonderware Food and Beverage page
2. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
3. Wonderware InTouch
4. New Belgium Brewing Homepage
5. New Belgium Brewing Sustainability

New Belgium Brewing has one of the largest privately owned solar arrays in Colorado

New Belgium Brewing has also employed photovoltaic technology to produce electricity from the sun. Panels have been placed on the roof of New Belgium’s packaging hall. These solar photovoltaic panels are able to produce up to 200 KW.

The solar arrays have a 200 KW capacity 

 

 "We have about 200 KW capacity of solar PV arrays on the roof of our packaging hall. When we built the packaging hall, we designed the roof in a specific way – the roof is actually white so it reflects the sunlight, it also concentrates it and we’re able to utilize also the real estate of the packaging hall itself."

Igor Valuyev, Chief Electrical and Automation Engineer, New Belgium Brewing 

And New Belgium Brewing uses Wonderware software to help their environmental and sustainability projects succeed.

 

More Information

For more information on New Belgium Brewing and the Wonderware products used in the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, please visit the following links:

1. The Wonderware Food and Beverage page
2. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
3. Wonderware InTouch
4. New Belgium Brewing Homepage
5. New Belgium Brewing Sustainability

New Belgium Brewing produces up to 15% of the brewery’s energy needs

 

Production wastewater processing

At their on-site Process Water Treatment Plant, New Belgium uses microbes to clean all of their production wastewater.

"In return we get this methane rich bio-gas which burns very well in our combined heat and power unit we have at the brewery, producing electricity and also some thermal energy. 

This energy can produce up to 15% of New Belgium’s electrical needs and turns a waste stream into a source of energy." 

Brandon Weaver Lead Process Water Treatment Technician New Belgium Brewing

More Information

For more information on New Belgium Brewing and the Wonderware products used in the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, please visit the following links:

1. The Wonderware Food and Beverage page
2. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
3. Wonderware InTouch
4. New Belgium Brewing Homepage
5. New Belgium Brewing Sustainability

New Belgium Brewing: Sustainability baked in the company's DNA

Jennifer Orgolini, Sustainability Steward at New Belgium Brewing talks about the genesis of the company as well as the inspiration that drove the company to engage in environmental stewardship and sustainability activities.

How it all began

"New Belgium started in 1991 in our founder’s basement. Our co-founder Jeff Lubich was on a bike trip through Europe, exploring all the great beer cities and he was then, already a home-brewer. He came through Belgium and realized what great beer is made there, how different it is from the German and English styles he was seeing in the US at the time. So he came back to the states, really kicked up his home brewing and his wife and his friends said you know we should really commercialize this: and so they sold their first beer in 1991."

Sustainability baked in the company's DNA

"Before Kim and Jeff sold their first beer, they took a hike together in Rocky Mountain National Park to decide what kind of company they wanted to run. And from that hike came the core values and beliefs that we live by today and several of those core values apply directly to environmental sustainability. So, environmental stewardship has been baked into the DNA of the company from the very beginning."

Environmental sustainability here at New Belgium Brewing encompasses many different areas

"Obviously, it’s in operations: water efficiency, energy efficiency and on-site renewable energy. It's a core piece of our operations. But we also look to the supply chain, and partnering with our suppliers to reduce their environmental impact which in turn makes our industry more sustainable."

Environmental sustainability also encompasses philanthropy 

"We donate over $600,000 to environmental non-profits. And we also try to reach out to the community to support legislation which will make society more sustainable. From the very beginning, energy efficiency has been important to us because the company was started by an engineer, an electrical engineer who was keen on making things run as well as possible. And so, from that we learned that energy efficiency needs to be the core of our energy philosophy. And after you’ve done all that you can with energy efficiency, then it’s time to start looking at renewable energy. But you have to do energy efficiency first."

"So, now at the brewery we are really excited about trying to bring more renewable generation on–site."

Jennifer V. Orgolini, Sustainability Steward, New Belgium Brewing

 

More Information

For more information on New Belgium Brewing and the Wonderware products used in the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, please visit the following links:

1. The Wonderware Food and Beverage page
2. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
3. Wonderware InTouch
4. New Belgium Brewing Homepage
5. New Belgium Brewing Sustainability

New Belgium Brewing, sustainability while producing high quality beer

The solution that helps New Belgium Brewing achieve its sustainability goals while producing high quality beer is a result of thoughtful engineering and meticulous planning, with a little help from Wonderware.

"Our automation system extends from process control to utilities control, building automation, automation of our energy consumption, and energy production, we are doing automatic packaging and automatic material handling. It's an extensive and very integrated automation system."

Igor Valuyev Chief Electrical and Automation Engineer New Belgium Brewing

New Belgium Brewing uses a variety of different hardware and software products to run the various parts of the brewery

Igor adds, "We have thousands of I/O points from Opto 22, Rockwell, Siemens and some GE. It's a little bit of everything."
 

The solution that helps New Belgium Brewing integrate all these hardware together is based on Wonderware software 

"The Wonderware system is what our operators use pretty much. That’s where the data is being extracted from, so it kind of unites all of the systems together - we unite them through Wonderware."

Igor further explains: "As far as our operators are concerned, to them it is transparent, which system, which I/O system, which control system is running."

Wonderware is hardware agnostic

"The operators see one cohesive set of screens, one cohesive set of interfaces, they can interface with the hardware and software through it. We’ve been utilizing Wonderware InTouch for over ten years, for extended period of time. We’re pretty happy with this system." 

 

More Information

For more information on New Belgium Brewing and the Wonderware products used in the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, please visit the following links:

1. The Wonderware Food and Beverage page
2. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
3. Wonderware InTouch
4. New Belgium Brewing Homepage
5. New Belgium Brewing Sustainability

At New Belgium Brewing, everything is designed around environmental compliance and sustainability

"Our challenge was to be able to save energy, and, as you can see everything we designed throughout the brewery, we keep the environment in mind. It starts from the very beginning when we are conceiving a project, we’re thinking: How will this project effect the environment? How will it effect our energy consumption and energy production?"

Igor Valuyev Chief Electrical and Automation Engineer New Belgium Brewing 

 

At New Belgium Brewing, everything is designed around environmental protection and sustainability

"We have to understand the core problem from the very beginning. The challenge with the system on the environmental side is: How do we keep producing high quantities and high quality of world class beer at the same time save the environment and save energy? It's very challenging," Igor adds, "but a lot of data analysis or a lot of data that we are able to provide to our operations allows us to do so." 

More Information

For more information on New Belgium Brewing and the Wonderware products used in the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, please visit the following links:

1. The Wonderware Food and Beverage page
2. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
3. Wonderware InTouch
4. New Belgium Brewing Homepage
5. New Belgium Brewing Sustainability

Sustainable Manufacturing at New Belgium Brewing

New Belgium Brewing is the third largest craft brewery in the U.S., producing over 18 million gallons of beer annually.

For New Belgium Brewing, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, Environmental Stewardship has been a core value since the company’s inception. As winners of the Environment and Safety Excellence award from Invensys, New Belgium stands as a shining example of sustainable manufacturing. 

 

"One of New Belgium Brewing’s core values is to honor nature at every turn. The health of our community and of our business depends upon the health of the natural environment."

 

Jennifer V. Orgolini, Director of Sustainability and Strategic Development 

More Information

Join me in the next series of posts as I discuss the New Belgium Brewing success story.

For more information on New Belgium Brewing and the Wonderware products used in the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, please visit the following links:

1. The Wonderware Food and Beverage page
2. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
3. Wonderware InTouch
4. New Belgium Brewing Homepage
5. New Belgium Brewing Sustainability

A Smart City solution at the Barcelona El Prat Airport, with a little help from Wonderware

AENA, whose operations take care of over 200 million travelers, created a Smart City solution at the Barcelona El Prat Airport that boasts a dynamic, high-functioning, reliable and secure infrastructure. 

With a little help from Wonderware

AENA's Smart City solution helps 200 million passengers a year

AENA is so pleased with the solution’s performance that today: Wonderware is being used in all the 46 airports that it manages all over Spain and overseas.

“AENA is the top operator in terms of the number of passengers handled. More than 200 million travellers pass through AENA’s 46 domestic and 15 international airports."

José Luis González

Director de Informático

 

But none of this success would be possible without the help of local partners

“Our experience with Wonderware Spain has been very positive. They have helped us a lot in the initial tool implementation phase, in creating the object validation model, following their recommendations and advice. They have greatly facilitated the implementation of solutions and have guided us to new developments we need to address.”

 

Jordi Asensi, Jefe de Departamento de Gestión de Sistemas y Bases de Datos

More Information

For more information on the Wonderware Smart City industry and Facilities Management solutions, please visit the following links:

1. The Invensys Software Smart City page
2. The Facilities Management page
3. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
4. Wonderware System Platform
5. Wonderware InTouch
6. Lane's Infrastructure and Smart City Blog
7. Lucian's HMI/SCADA Blog

Barcelona-El Prat Airport: Standardization helps maintenance too

The standardization done at the Barcelona-El Prat Airport Smart City solution has reaped benefits not only for operations. It has also made it easier for the maintenance people to do their work.

“The solution helps us in terms of maintenance so we can have a single control point to monitor all facilities. It also allows us to have the same control point in each of the sites. So, when an incident or breakdown is detected, we can actually see what's going on and interact remotely without sending out a technician. This translates into significant time and cost savings”. 

Jordi Asensi, Jefe de Departamento de Gestión de Sistemas y Bases de Datos

 

More Information

For more information on the Wonderware Smart City industry and Facilities Management solutions, please visit the following links:

1. The Invensys Software Smart City page
2. The Facilities Management page
3. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
4. Wonderware System Platform
5. Wonderware InTouch
6. Lane's Infrastructure and Smart City Blog
7. Lucian's HMI/SCADA Blog

Standardization at the Barcelona-El Prat Airport

 

The Wonderware System Platform objects created by AENA encourage standardization

AENA adopted an engineering standard on solution implementation with the help of Wonderware System Platform. During the design stage, each new device that is added into the airport's Smart City Solution would be integrated into the Wonderware System Platform based on a set of common rules, and each supplier and system integrator who was awarded a contract would be required to conform to these rules.

 

Replication of objects make integration easy

 

A data template was created for each element to be deployed in the airport. Wonderware enabled these objects and templates to be easily replicated, and pretty soon AENA had a library that helped them to connect all field devices in a standardized manner.

No matter what PLC or any other device manufacturer was used in a particular section of the airport, it had a common interface to the Smart City solution. Since each vendor followed AENA's contract specifications, the various components integrated successfully.

 

Twenty or so System Integrators work in harmony 

Based on the feedback of the twenty or so System Integrators that regularly do work for AENA, the project marks a change in how control systems are developed in Spain’s airport sector. The new way of implementing large scale airports in Spain overcomes two key challenges:

1. It avoids duplication of engineering work
2. New components could be brought online faster because the objects have already been pre-validated

“This is an object-oriented environment, so when we develop an object, we can reuse it for the same facilities without having to repeat code or generate new errors.  Since it is an open-code, market solution, it also allows for several integrators to work with the system, creating a competitive environment that cuts back development costs.”

Jordi Asensi, Jefe de Departamento de Gestión de Sistemas y Bases de Datos

More Information

For more information on the Wonderware Smart City industry and Facilities Management solutions, please visit the following links:

1. The Invensys Software Smart City page
2. The Facilities Management page
3. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
4. Wonderware System Platform
5. Wonderware InTouch
6. Lane's Infrastructure and Smart City Blog
7. Lucian's HMI/SCADA Blog

Barcelona-El Prat Airport: Everything Under a Single Platform

Wonderware System Platform enables AENA to manage a large number of processes at the Barcelona-El Prat Airport in an integrated and simultaneous manner under a single platform — even with so many devices and signals with distinct technological languages.

“Wonderware Spain realized that System Platform could be greatly advantageous for airport management. System Platform has a number of features that make it appropriate for infrastructure management. 

For example, it can control up to one million inputs and outputs. Having a million inputs and outputs allow total control of an airport facility, where thousands of signals must be controlled all at once.

Secondly, another important point is redundancy. In a facility such as an airport, which has to be operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, it is very important to eliminate system failures. And System Platform has redundancy built in.”

Jordi Rey, Managing Director, Wonderware Spain

More Information

 

For more information on the Wonderware Smart City industry and Facilities Management solutions, please visit the following links:

1. The Invensys Software Smart City page
2. The Facilities Management page
3. The Wonderware Supervisory and Control page
4. Wonderware System Platform 
5. Wonderware InTouch
6. Lane's Infrastructure and Smart City Blog
7. Lucian's HMI/SCADA Blog