SA Breweries brew and package world-class beer. Their products include Castle Lager, Castle Milk Stout, Castle Lite, Lion Lager, Carling Black Label,
Amstel Lager, and Hansa Pilsner.
SA Breweries' packaging hall has inspection devices (bottle counters and filler valves) located through out the various lines (4 lines spread over a
floor space of approximately 300m x 100m. Each inspection device can report data through a RS-232 port, using either Modbus or ASCII strings. These
devices are connected to SAN People EtherPADs to provide Ethernet connectivity. This data is then read via DSSI Omniserver and then written directly
into Wonderware InSQL via DDE. The line managers and any other interested party can then access the data directly via the intranet management interface.
The project achieved the following objectives:
- Supply real-time integrated information with little human intervention as possible.
- Reduce the amount of paperwork to a realistic minimum.
- Show where the beer loss is in the packaging hall, and with management focus, allows one to take corrective action.
The benefits are:
- Data is captured at source, thereby eliminating human error, and the odd fudge factor.
- Real-time data is available on intranet for easy management access.
The hardware required to implement the project were 24 Etherpads, 2 Cabletron Switches, 2 3Comm Hubs, and an LH6000 NT Server. Animation is in the form
of java applets on the web server.
It allows the user/s to graphically monitor where the rejects and discrepancies are. Although some teething problems were experienced initially, there
were no major issues.Any problems that were experienced were readily resolved with SAN People once the relationship was established. Streamworks (Durban)
in collaboration with SAN People technical support personnel were involved with the set-up and commissioning of the Etherpads as well as writing of the
device drivers.
http://www.sabreweries.com
http://www.streamworks.co.za
