Wonderware Historian plays a central role in utilities management at Namibia Breweries
FOOD & BEVERAGE
Goals
- Record critical production information from the solar, NH3 cooling, boilers, and CO2 plants as well as from the water and power meters
- Transfer production information to the existing DCS
- Develop a dashboard system for management to view consumption-related information linked to production volumes and KPIs
Challenges
- Getting the buy-in from all stakeholders
- Time synchronization between the old Historian and the OPC server
Results
- CO2 sales targets met
- Compliance with municipal regulations
- Electricity savings
- Improved solar plant effectiveness
- Improved fault-finding
- Improved decision making regarding plant requirements
- Better loss control
- Verification of the KPIs of new plant and equipment
- More accurate calculation and reconciliation of project KPIs and ROIs
Solutions & Products
- Historian
- Historian Client
- TOP Server

Implementation
The project was started in February 2015 and changeover to the new system was done after a two-week parallel operation during January and February 2016. But according to Engelbrecht, this is not the end as it is a “living” system designed to grow and supply the company’s information needs well into the future.
NBL has a central DCS which controls the beer-making process from beginning to end but achieving NBL’s goals of accurate decision support based on reality and real-time production information, more data collection and collation resources would be needed.
“It was vitally important that we got the buy-in from all stakeholders regarding the value of doing this, after which we decided to use the power of Wonderware Historian and the scripting capabilities of Historian Client,” says Engelbrecht.
“We also installed Software Toolbox’s TOP Server to retrieve data from our utility plants and systems and used the DCS to build a SCADA system. We then developed a web-reporting system for production personnel and a dashboard system for management. Most of our physical servers are now hosted in a virtual environment and this has made things a lot easier, such as time synchronization between the old Historian and the OPC server.”
NBL configured a virtual enterprise consisting of two TOP Servers (to balance the load of more than 100 PLCs and systems), one DataHub Server, Wonderware Historian, the main historian data warehouse and a web server. A secure https dashboard server enables management to view daily and monthly sales and operational KPIs from anywhere and weekly real-time stock volumes are sent to NBL’s advanced planning system using Historian Client queries. SAP files are imported daily regarding sales, production, logistics and depot information.

The system lets qualified personnel view various utility consumption and production information at the same time wherever they may be. They’re also able to view daily, weekly and monthly consumption information on the same platform. In future NBL will be able to switch off non-critical plant equipment to ensure that their maximum demand remains below target.
“It is great to see what can be done with technology and data when you use the right tools such as the Wonderware products we implemented in this project. It was also a great learning experience to combine the products we chose to enable us to make our end-results and user-experience better and more effective,” says Annemarie Kruger, MES/MIS Specialist, NBL.
“In my opinion, some of the most outstanding features of the system include its open standards, the wide range of drivers available, its scalability (as big as we want to go) as well as its ease of use, customisation and integration facilities with other initiatives,” adds Engelbrecht. “This implementation was all about 80% planning and 20% implementation. Wonderware’s Customer FIRST support programme is a must and the support from Wonderware Southern Africa and Software Toolbox was outstanding.”