Anheuser-Busch demands precise control and consistency in the brewing of its products. Reliability and maintainability issues in the process control system in the Newark Brewery’s brewhouse were threatening to impact the company’s performance standard. The brewhouse was controlled by legacy technology consisting of Allen-Bradley PLC-2/30s, Fisher-Porter microDCI single-loop controllers and pilot-light/pushbutton panels. In addition to the reliability and maintainability issues, the legacy system limited the Newark staff’s process flexibility, which hampered their optimization and efficiency efforts.

The brewhouse process area includes a complex system of process vessels, instrumentation and PID loop control to perform the numerous steps required for grinding, weighing, cooking, straining and boiling the product.

The brewery’s demanding production schedule required completing the project in an extremely limited timeframe. The system also had to be converted and returned to 100% production capacity in a span of 48 hours.

The Solution

McEnery Automation worked with Anheuser-Busch’s brewing personnel and engineers to quickly understand and document the existing process. This knowledge was then used in the formulation of the new control system and process design. The new system was implemented using multiple Rockwell Automation PLC-5 processors along with a FactoryLink HMI/SCADA system. This system was required to interface with all existing instruments and field devices.

The system’s complexity and the aggressive scheduling required McEnery Automation to utilize seven engineers to perform 3,000 man-hours of system design, programming and simulation in a span of three months.

The Results

The new system brought the Newark brewery’s process control system in line with its other process areas, as well as with other Anheuser-Busch facilities. This significantly increased reliability and maintainability of the brewery’s system and provided the much needed flexibility to allow for process optimization. The Newark brewery also expanded its ability to handle a greater variety of products and recipes.

 
©2001 McEnery Automation