1. About Amalgamated Beverage
Industries
ABI, the soft drink division of The South
African Breweries Limited, is one of the
leading soft drink businesses in the
international SABMiller plc group of
companies and remains one of the
largest producers and distributors of the
Coca-Cola Company brands in the
southern hemisphere.
ABI was established in Johannesburg in
1976 as a result of beverage
manufacturing and marketing
agreements between The Coca-Cola
Export Corporation of the United States,
Cadbury-Schweppes (South Africa)
Limited and The South African Breweries
Limited (now SABMiller plc).
ABI accounts for approximately 60% of
Coca-Cola’s sales in South Africa. They
sell and distribute over 260 stock-keeping
units covering more than 32 brands and
20 pack sizes into a customer base
topping 40 000. The company also
partners with organisations that help to
alleviate the day-to-day impact of
pollution on the environment.
INDUSTRY: FOOD AND BEVERAGE
WONDERWARE SOUTHERN AFRICA
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
Faced with the challenge of commissioning a new packaging line in time for the annual summer run on soft drinks,
Amalgamated Beverage Industries (ABI), the soft drink division of The South African Breweries Limited, turned to line
performance improvement for a solution. This solution came with its own implementation challenges, including OEM coding
standards, infrastructure installation and technology maturity.
SAB-ABI packaging line performance
SAB’s soft drink division, ABI, uses Wonderware MES to improve packaging line performance
Business requirements
The main business goal was to improve and accelerate packaging line commissioning which led to the
necessity for tracking machine performance parameters, reducing manual data capture, improving the
accuracy of measurements and establishing reference points in order to better evaluate the reports from
OEMs regarding the performance of their machines.
“This last point is of great importance to us,” says John Coetzee, SAB Business Systems Manager,
Manufacturing. “OEMs are responsible for the performance and the commissioning of their machines
until handover and without a yardstick, it would be difficult for us to evaluate the meaning of the statistics
they provide.”
Another objective of this project was to serve as “proof of concept” regarding the implementation of
OMAC / PackML standards as well as the level of interaction that would be required with OEMs. “We also
wanted to evaluate the available toolsets that could help us with performance improvements and
determine what part of the project yielded the most value,” adds Coetzee.
Project scope
SAB selected system integrator EOH Mining and Manufacturing (EOHMM) to implement the project for
the soft drinks line being commissioned at ABI Pretoria. EOHMM was charged with compiling the user
requirements specification, doing a thin-slice implementation for the filler, developing and implementing
the full application right through to the end-user reports, doing the factory acceptance testing,
commissioning the system and training users and the technical team on how to manage and maintain the
application.
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2. SAB-ABI packaging line performance
WONDERWARE SOUTHERN AFRICA
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
The new system would have to:
 Leverage the existing and mature SAP process order / Daily
Production Reporting (DPR) facilities
 Conform with international standards (OMAC/PackML)
 Conform with SAB standards with respect to HMI/SCADA (mimics,
etc.), ArchestrA, naming of plant equipment and also the DPR which
has its own standard for the classification of faults and fault codes
 Capture downtime through the OMAC model for the filler as well as
the rest of the line equipment (the filler being more complex than
the rest of the equipment since it required operator input for
context such as faulty raw material, up or downstream stoppages,
etc.)
Software selection
The software chosen to address these and other issues included the
Wonderware Performance (MES) software, System Platform ArchestrA-
based application development infrastructure, InTouch HMI/SCADA,
Information Server web portal and real-time Historian. “From Microsoft,
we used the Hyper V 2008 Virtualisation solution as well as SQL 2005 /
Reporting Services and Windows 2003 / Server Platform,” says EOHMM
MES Specialist Paul Kotzé. “In addition, we used the Siemens S7
300/400 PLC suite driver from Software Toolbox and the ProsCon OPC
client for interfacing to the Palletiser and Caser.
System overview
The project started in August of 2008 and is currently on-going with a
number of future enhancements planned.
“Since we didn’t want to be the middle man, EOHMM was to interface
directly with the packaging line equipment OEM who, in this case, is
KHS,” says Coetzee. “We took a collaborative engineering approach
involving the ABI process control manager who advised regarding
processes and procedures, the SAB Manufacturing Systems division for
design guidelines and standards and EOHMM for all the engineering
aspects. This worked very well.”
With reference to figure 1, production orders generated by SAP are
currently entered manually into the MES in the same way that lost time
and production quantities are fed back to SAP. Eventually, this will be
automated through the integration of MES and ERP functions.
“Wonderware’s Performance (MES) software is required to add context
to the captured information, without which the raw data isn’t too
helpful,” says Coetzee. “The software also tracks production volumes
and deliveries against the downloaded production order.”
The system design is based on the existing DPR standards for reason
code groupings and makes use of the System Platform’s object-oriented
technology to define standard components ranging from work order
schedules to conveyors (including air conveyors used for aseptic
conditions). “The ability to define standardised components greatly
reduces engineering effort in the long run,” says Kotzé. “It also makes
their maintenance and deployment a great deal easier.”
What didn’t make things easier was that the project was being
implemented at the same time as the packaging line it was to monitor
was being commissioned. “The focus is naturally on the line itself being
able to deliver the goods and not on the software infrastructure that
will monitor it,” says Coetzee, “and this made life quite difficult for
EOHMM.”
The InTouch screens show the standardised PackML / OMAC
information blocks which display the state of the various machines (see
figure 4). To prevent operator confusion, only the availability
component of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) information is
normally shown although the full OEE dashboard is available on request.
In addition to OEE dashboards, any specified portion of the HMI screens
can be made to display various information such as downtime Pareto
About OMAC and PackML
OMAC stands for the Organisation for Machine Automation and
Control and the PackML standard does the following:
 Defines line types from a stand-alone unit (such as a filler or
labeller) to a fully-integrated packaging line
 Defines machine states – e.g. running, stopped, paused
 Defines a list of tag names, definitions and data sets
 Shows how to use these for communication and use of
information from machinery to other machinery and higher-
level systems
2
Figure 1: System landscape and architecture
Blow Moulder
(where bottles are
produced or “blown”)
Labeller
(where bottles get
labelled)
Filler
(where bottles are
filled)
Blender
(where the syrup
concentrate is
blended)
Caser
(where filled bottles
are packed into cases)
Palletiser
(where filled cases are
palletised)
Case Washer
(where returned
crates get washed)
Figure 2: The packaging process at ABI

3. SAB-ABI packaging line performance
WONDERWARE SOUTHERN AFRICA
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
charts (including the reason for machine stoppages as well as stoppage
frequency and duration), job progress and live or historical performance
trending. The selected portion of the screen can also be used for
handling process orders.
“The accuracy of the downtime reports is such that even the OEM is
using them to troubleshoot their equipment in preference to the
manual tracking sheets they normally use when commissioning,” says
Coetzee.
Benefits
 Accurate and real-time downtime reporting – has proved of great
business value to ABI (e.g. raw material quality) and diagnostic value
to the OEM
 More accurate estimate of reject counts/crates on the line – it was
previously very difficult to do this since all the information wasn’t
readily available. It’s now possible to more accurately forecast
where production will stand at the end of the day
 Openness – OMAC/PackML and ISA-95 compliance will provide far
more flexibility in the future and allow enhancing the solution
through product upgrades
 Reporting of all micro stops – automatic logging of stoppages, no
matter their duration, has eliminated the error-prone method of
manual logging. “Major stoppages are well known but it’s the micro
stops that kill performance,” says Coetzee
 Analysis capability – being in a database rather than captured
manually, information is now readily available for any number or
types of analyses
3
“The System Platform’s Object Oriented Technology and centralised
development environment means that plant objects are defined once,
edited if necessary and immediately deployed to all their instances
throughout the plant. No more running around with memory sticks.”
Paul Kotzé, EOHMM MES Specialist
Fig 3: System topology

4. SAB-ABI packaging line performance
WONDERWARE SOUTHERN AFRICA
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
For further information contact Jaco Markwat at Wonderware Southern Africa
tel: +27 11 607 8303 | e-mail: jaco.markwat@wonderware.co.za
Summary and conclusion
According to Coetzee, having the system integrator deal directly with
the OEM turned out to be a “perfect” arrangement. “EOHMM talking
directly with KHS went a long way towards eliminating
misunderstandings, long lead times and other delays.”
Perhaps the single most outstanding feature of the implementation was
the adoption of international standards (OMAC / PackML / ISA-95) and
the adherence to internal standards (DPR). “Packaging line equipment
manufacturers used to play it close to the chest with proprietary
solutions that made us very wary because they would lock us in. But
since they’ve adopted open standards, we are keener to buy these
solutions because we know they will have interoperability and will be
able to be integrated with other systems. So the irony is that the tactic
of proprietary systems designed to lock in customers actually sold less
then open systems with interoperability.”
Today’s MES implementations are a far cry from the “big bang”
approach of the past. They can be installed gradually and the success of
each incremental implementation measured before contemplating the
next move while adherence to standards like ISA-95 ensure that all the
pieces of the puzzle will actually fit together over time.
4
“The accuracy of the downtime reports is such that even the OEM is
using them to troubleshoot their equipment in preference to the
manual tracking sheets they normally use when commissioning.”
John Coetzee, SAB Business Systems Manager, Manufacturing
Figure 4: InTouch screen showing the status of some of the packaging line machines as well as a Work Order
being entered into the MES system