Wonderware, industrial strength software that's fun to use

It isn't just in Jim Brown's head, Wonderware really is industrial strength software that's fun to use. You can read about the legendary Wonderware stories from Gary Wilkinson's posts.

New Belgium Brewing: Finding more time to bottle as customer demand grows

The operations management team at New Belgium Brewing took a close look at its bottling lines and realized that they were producing 150,000 cases each week on lines that were capable of producing 294,000 cases.

“After ramping up the work week of our bottling line, we were disappointed to find that brewery was producing only about half of the product the line was truly capable of producing. That’s when we realized it was time to look at how to rectify this situation, so we called on Apex and their team of software engineers to help determine next steps in achieving full production capabilities.”

Joe Herrick
Packaging Systems Manager
New Belgium Brewing

The folks at New Belgium Brewing found out that valuable packaging time was being lost during both scheduled and unscheduled downtimes and the management team realized it was time to implement a solution that would improve performance.

“We had been using the paper-based system for a long time around here, but with the product volumes our staff was now faced with managing, this system could no longer cut it. With the various changes in beer mixes and packaging options, the chance of error when maintaining these records manually significantly increased the chance for human error. It was time to step up to the next level of automation so that we could accurately manage scheduled and unscheduled downtimes.”

New Belgium decided to implement a performance solution using the Wonderware Manufacturing Execution System (MES) software with the help of system integrator, Apex Manufacturing Solutions.

More on this in my next post.

More information

Please visit the following links if you want to know more about the Wonderware solution at New Belgium Brewing:

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

Why did New Belgium Brewing decide to use Wonderware MES Performance Software?

To answer that question, you need to understand the goals and challenges that they faced. Here is a condensed summary.

Goals:

1. To increase the company’s ability to fully take advantage of manufacturing capabilities
2. To achieve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and produce a quality product; manage production efficiency; and ensure production line availability through scheduled downtimes, package changes, and scheduled maintenance activities.
3. To operate the brewery at full production capacity and double case production

Challenges:

1. The brewery lacked real-time information on unscheduled downtimes at various equipment areas which caused production slowdowns
2. Production staff were continually reacting to unscheduled downtime at equipment areas
3. Management needed to address gaps in methods and processes to drive improvements
4. The bottling operation lacked the ability to predict capabilities to effectively commit brewery staff to specific production goals

More information

More on this tomorrow. In the meantime, 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

Kampai!
Jay

New Belgium Brewing - 3rd largest craft brewer in the USA, Wonderware user

What started out as a beer brewing hobby fueled by a passion for great tasting craft brews, has turned into one of America’s best multi-million dollar success stories. Producing some of the world’s most popular craft brews, including Fat Tire and a multitude of other popular IPA, Pilsner, wheat beers and ales, has the folks at New Belgium Brewing Co. tapping into the world’s demand for great tasting American craft brews.

So how does a company maintain its position as the nation’s third largest craft brewery and eighth largest overall brewery in the U.S. since 2012?

Give the people what they want - more great tasting beer. To ensure its discerning beer loving fans receive only the highest quality beverage, New Belgium implemented a series of manufacturing automation initiatives over the last five years to streamline and improve its brewing and bottling facility in northern Colorado.

 

“New Belgium’s brewing operations were rapidly reaching capacity, and we needed to identify both efficiencies and inefficiencies in our bottling lines so the brewery could maintain its operating schedule. With such a rapid growth of our business year after year, and sometimes at a pretty fast clip, this was a good problem to have, but still a problem we needed to address.

Joe Herrick
Packaging Systems Manager
New Belgium Brewing

More information

For more information about the products that was used in the New Belgium Brewing solution that was created with the help of system itegrator Apex Manufacturing Solutions, 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

 

Throughout this week (and probably the next), I will be featuring the MES implementation at New Belgium Brewing.

Cheers!
Jay

The Wonderware Y2K Ad

The copy says "Everything grinds to a halt in eight hundred and sixteen days" so I'm suspecting the ad came out around October 7, 1997.

Am I right? Yes, of course - it's in the fine print. See below.

The years leading up to the year 2000, those were fun times, if you were an automation engineer.

Read the Eskom Success Story

"Wonderware software provides our engineering and management teams with access to usable data that before was not readily available. We can now make decisions in real-time on our electricity generation capabilities, enabling Eskom to continue to improve the quality of life of more than 50 million people."

John Viljoen, Corporate Consultant for Generation Business Eskom Holdings Ltd.

More information

For more information about the products used here, please visit the following links:

1. Wonderware Supervisory Control
2. Wonderware InTouch
3. Wonderware System Platform
4. Wonderware Historian
5. Wonderware Historian Client

The Right Solution for the Right Application at Eskom

Eskom bears the enormous responsibility of providing electricity to the African sub-continent. From homes, to businesses, to industry, Eskom’s network of power plants required an integrated, reliable software solution to ensure its facilities are operating at peak performance and that it enables access to critical plant data to anyone, anywhere at any time.

 

With the implementation of the Wonderware solution, Eskom now has the tools to understand and control its vast and complex network of power generation facilities -- improving the quality of life of the millions of people who rely on the power the company provides each day.

“The drive for increased reliability and efficiency of operations requires having better plant information accessible in real time. Wonderware software provides our engineering and management teams with access to useable data that before was not readily available. We can now make decisions in real-time on our electricity generation capabilities, enabling Eskom to continue to improve the quality of life of more than 50 million people.”

John Viljoen, Corporate Consultant for Generation Business Eskom Holdings Ltd.

More information

For more information about the products used here, please visit the following links:

1. Wonderware Supervisory Control
2. Wonderware InTouch
3. Wonderware System Platform
4. Wonderware Historian
5. Wonderware Historian Client

Join the Schneider Electric Software Open Contest and win $5,000

 

Here is a great opportunity for you and your team to be recognized as world class game changers. Join the 2014 Schneider Electric Software OPEN contest and showcase your solution.

All you need to do is download the form and explain how you've implemented your solution and provide measurable, real-time business results.

Submit your entries to me on or before September 19, 2014. We have the following categories:

• HMI and Supervisory Control Excellence
• Manufacturing Operations Management Excellence
• Production Information Management Excellence
• Asset Excellence
• Planning and Scheduling Excellence
• Optimization/Simulation Excellence

There’s a $5,000 cash prize for the winner that’s going to be given during the User Conference in Orlando.

The Wonderware IntelaTrac customer success story eBook is now available!

Wonderware IntelaTrac enables manufacturers and processors to achieve reliable, safe and profitable operations through consistent execution of best practices by the field workforce — accelerating and sustaining mainstream process improvements.

 

Our new customer success story eBook on Wonderware IntelaTrac is now out. Contact your local Wonderware distributor for more information or visit us at the Workforce Enablement website.

 

Challenge: Integrate plant and business systems

A series of Challenge, Solution ads came out when we were introducing Application Server and ArchestrA and this was one of them.

Challenge: Integrate plant and business systems. Solution: Wonderware Software. Integrate your business system and existing plant systems in 4 months or less.

Here's another one. Challenge: Faster,easier regulatory compliance. Solution: Wonderware Software. Reduce the pain, time and money associated with regulatory compliance.

 



Wonderware really came out with the coolest ads.

You are missing a lot if you have an HMI in your plant without a historian

When you add Wonderware Historian to your HMI system, you gain greater insight into your process through rich historical data capture and analysis tools. Indeed, the secret to getting even more from your HMI system is to add a Wonderware Historian.

More information

For more information, please visit the Wonderware Historian page.

Linking IT with Plant Processes Improves Both Business and Operations Performance at Eskom

“As far as IT was concerned, plant control systems were just black boxes which we just didn’t understand. Our IT department’s focus was on integration and storage methods for transactional systems which operated on a fragmented outsourced IT infrastructure. It just wasn’t suitable for processing or managing real-time plant data.

With the implementation of Wonderware System Platform and its various applications, we’ve been able to bridge the divide between IT and the plant floor enabling each department to effectively collect and assess data for making critical business decisions.”

Vicki Naudé
Senior Advisor for Generation Information Management

More information

For more information about the products used here, please visit the following links:

1. Wonderware Supervisory Control
2. Wonderware InTouch
3. Wonderware System Platform
4. Wonderware Historian
5. Wonderware Historian Client

Eskom responds to incidents quicker with Wonderware Historian

Eskom structured the new plant management system by employing a single Wonderware Historian at each power station to collect data. This data is replicated at the corporate office in a centralized Historian application for assessment of overall plant operations and reporting.

“Because our plants are spread over several miles, Wonderware Historian was the ideal choice for data historization. The software is able to maintain data integrity while handling intermittent, late or bursts of data. The software also is able to generate actionable information for faster, more accurate decision-making,”


Vicki Naudé
Senior Advisor for Generation Information Management

The capabilities of Wonderware Historian now provide Eskom with a high-performance real-time database that offers unparalleled scalability offering up to 500,000 tags with greater retrieval throughput than ever before. With Eskom power plants located throughout South Africa, Historian provides aggregated data that enables operators to compare the performance of multiple facilities, and make informed decisions on plant improvements and quicker incident responses.

More information

For more information about the products used here, please visit the following links:

1. Wonderware Supervisory Control
2. Wonderware InTouch
3. Wonderware System Platform
4. Wonderware Historian
5. Wonderware Historian Client

A Comprehensive, Standardized Software Platform at Eskom

Adopting the Plant Data System (PDS) strategy using Wonderware software makes plant data openly accessible and in a standard format enabling workers in every area of the business to access and use the real-time data collected from each of Eskom’s plant. 

“The Invensys solution featured capabilities that meet the needs of collecting and providing real-time information to our staff to support both operational and business decisions, while also addressing the issue of standardization. It also provided the company with a cost-effective solution by enabling us to purchase a half million tags to be used wherever needed throughout Eskom, instead of having to purchase individual sets of tags for each power station."

John Viljoen, corporate consultant for Generation Business Engineering at Eskom

Comprehensive, Standardized Software Platform Easily Links All Plants

Wonderware System Platform was implemented to provide a comprehensive, standardized software platform that would link all Eskom facilities.  Wonderware System Platform offers common services such as visualization, configuration, deployment, communication, security, data connectivity, data storage and management and people collaboration.

These services allowed Eskom to build a single, unified “Plant Model” that logically represents its processes, physical equipment and industrial systems, even legacy systems, making the design and maintenance of these systems more efficient, more flexible and with less risk. The Plant Model also gives essential context to power plant data, greatly assisting with diagnostics and troubleshooting, as well as providing valuable system documentation throughout the system lifecycle.

More information

For more information about the products used here, please visit the following links:

1. Wonderware Supervisory Control
2. Wonderware InTouch
3. Wonderware System Platform
4. Wonderware Historian
5. Wonderware Historian Client

Wonderware software enabled Eskom to improve the overall performance of all its plants

In 2008, Eskom developed the Plant Data System (PDS) initiative to centralize all plant management activities via a standardized software solution from Wonderware. With this, Eskom management, plant technicians and administrators now have access to real-time information to more effectively make operation and business decisions that directly affect service to its customers, as well as the company’s bottom line.

Eskom implemented a number of Wonderware based applications that enables its staff to use plant data and overall information more effectively

Standardizing on an information technology systems using a single, integrated software platform was the most important requirement to effectively accessing and evaluating plant data and operations information. Using Wonderware software, Eskom is able to comply with ISA-95 standards as well as conform to its Generic Plant Breakdown Guide.

“Each power station is unique and in the past, each ran its own operations and monitoring software programs -- no attempt was ever made to standardize all of our facilities on one single, integrated software system. Our highest priority in implementing the Wondderware solution was to eliminate duplicate engineering efforts by centralizing data and operations on a single platform that could be accessed by authorized managers and operators at any time.  Wonderware software enabled Eskom to improve the overall performance of all of our plants.”

John Viljoen, corporate consultant for Generation Business Engineering at Eskom

More information

For more information about the products used here, please visit the following links:

1. Wonderware Supervisory Control
2. Wonderware InTouch
3. Wonderware System Platform
4. Wonderware Historian
5. Wonderware Historian Client

45% of the electricity used in the African continent is generated by Eskom

On a continent spanning more than 11.7 million square miles and home to millions of people in 54 countries, the demand for reliable electricity is great, and essential to the everyday lives of residents as well as businesses. As in most countries around the world, keeping up with society’s insatiable appetite for electricity grows every day. No company is more familiar with this than Eskom Holdings Ltd.
 

Eskom is responsible for generating and distributing approximately 95 percent of the electricity used in South Africa alone, and about 45 percent of all the electricity used throughout Africa

The electricity produced by Eskom is used not only by residents, but also powers a variety of industrial applications such as mining, commercial businesses and agricultural.

More information

Through the next series of posts, I will discuss the Wonderware solution implemented at Eskom. For more information about the products used here, please visit the following links:

1. Wonderware Supervisory Control
2. Wonderware InTouch
3. Wonderware System Platform
4. Wonderware Historian
5. Wonderware Historian Client

Receive personalized mobile plant alert notifications with SmartGlance

The new MyAlerts feature for SmartGlance provides the capability to receive personalized mobile plant alert notifications based on configurable thresholds for Tag Reports.

Watch is here:

There's a reason why Avantis customers love Avantis Software

This is a video featuring the Avantis User Group Community - Meet the passionate members of the Avantis User Group and find out why Avantis rocks.