After successfully passing the site acceptance test (SAT) for Heineken Den Bosch brewery in December 2020, Montelektro concluded the five years-long project which consisted of extensive project organization, software engineering, and site commissioning.
Besides being the largest and most complex Heineken brewery in the Netherlands, the brewery located in Den Bosch is also one of the largest in the world. Its annual brewing capacity is 7.5 million hl of more than 100 brands of beer which makes it one of Montelektro’s most complex brewing industry projects ever.
The project scope included re-automation of the complete production stream from raw material intake to packaging, as well as the utility area such as water and wastewater plants, cooling area, steam boilers, and CO2 plants. Customers’ requirements for this brownfield project were minimal downtime (2 to 4 hours) and the flawless transition between phases, without outstanding issues after the startup of each phase.
The team engaged in this project consisted of 20 experts working from the office (up to 10 engineers working simultaneously) and four experts working on-site (up to 8 engineers working simultaneously). Customer management, engineers, technicians, and operators have also contributed to this valuable achievement, alongside the before-mentioned team members. Before each phase, Montelektro performed very thorough testing in the office simulation environment.
The new automation system is built on Proleit brewmaxx platform with Siemens automation hardware. Over a hundred of old Rockwell CPUs were replaced by 27 Siemens PLC configurations. Furthermore, two system servers with SQL databases now support the system. Within the project, the plant is also equipped with 50 operator workstations with multiple monitors, and the process control system is interfaced with Manufacturing Execution System (MES).
During the five years, 25,000 control modules and 1,200 automation sequences have been implemented.
The final result of this cooperation is the new automation system running flawlessly and a satisfied customer that awarded Montelektro with SLA contract which provides continuous monitoring of system performance.