InBev was formed in August 2004 when former Interbrew and AmBev agreed to merge and establish a company that was to become `the world's premier brewer'.
InBev is now one of the world's biggest brewers, joining Interbrew with sales in over 140 countries and AmBev that has leadership positions throughout Latin America.
InBev's strategy is to strengthen its local platforms by building significant positions in the world's major beer markets through organic growth, world-class efficiency, targeted acquisitions, and by putting customers first.
InBev employs some 70 000 people, running operations in over 30 countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. In 2003, InBev realised a net turnover of approximately 9,3 billion Euro.
Former Interbrew has a long standing relationship with Siemens as an automation vendor and also as a provider of laboratory information management systems (LIMS).
InBev first started using Siemens' LIMS SIMATIC IT Unilab in 1997, when it was installed in seven breweries in Belgium and the Netherlands. In 2001, the Canadian subsidiary Labatt implemented SIMATIC IT Unilab in 10 plants.
After having taken over a number of breweries in Central Europe, Russia and Ukraine, InBev again decided to implement SIMATIC IT Unilab in an additional 25 plants in order to replace the existing homegrown and paper-based systems.
Today, a total of 42 InBev breweries rely on SIMATIC IT Unilab to help it provide the market with the right brands, at the right cost and taking into account regional preferences.
Why SIMATIC IT Unilab?
In 2003, InBev again searched the market in order to select the LIMS for 25 breweries in the CE-RUK region. Again, SIMATIC IT Unilab was chosen due to its perfect fit with InBev's requirements. The pilot went live successfully in Romania in February 2004. Following this first success, five roll-outs were realised during 2004 in Romania and Bulgaria.
Guido Van Roey, vice-president Global Technical Compliance, was already involved in the very first SIMATIC IT Unilab projects within Interbrew: "In 1997, I was involved in the decision to implement SIMATIC IT Unilab for the first Belgian/Dutch project. Now, though not really involved in the actual selection of the solution due to a foreign assignment of two years, I recently took charge of what we call the CE-RUK project. A major difference between the very first projects and this one is the architecture of the solution. For this project, we have decided to set up the whole LIMS solution using an ASP model. This means that we are able to offer a centrally managed and uniform SIMATIC IT Unilab application to the various sites. This solution was possible thanks to the efforts, competence and domain expertise of our system integrator, Siemens EIT ES4 (formerly known as Compex).
"The objective is also to offer additional possibilities in the near future, such as support for local (Cyrillic) languages and instrument connections."
Overall benefits of the Siemens SIMATIC IT Unilab implementation include:
* Quality at lowest cost.
* Fast availability of quality data and results.
* Standardised and automated reporting procedures.
* Automated validation and reporting.
* Efficient workflow in the laboratory.
* QA/QC integrated in the production process.
* At-line and off-line quality testing.
* Connectivity with lab equipment.
* Low TCO of enterprise quality management system.
* Standard software product.
* Regulatory compliance.
Best fit
Van Roey says: "We are very satisfied with the intensive and fruitful collaboration between InBev and Siemens. After all, the pilot was set up in a relatively short period of seven months. Another very important aspect was the presentation of the pilot to the future end-users, who gave it an enthusiastic reception, which laid the foundations for the rapid introduction of the first SIMATIC IT Unilab roll-outs."
"In the past, the CE-RUK region worked with in-house developed systems which were initially adequate to meet the basic requirements for processing our analyses. However, a number of additional requirements and expectations clearly stressed the need for a professional LIMS approach", says Caroline De Block, LIMS project manager.
"Besides complete traceability, we primarily wanted to have the possibility to centralise our quality reporting at group level, harmonising and - where necessary - optimising local processes in the labs, as well as increasing the involvement of the production operators in the quality process", says Alain Landuyt, QC director Central Europe.
The business challenge
The corporate strategy of InBev is based on strengthening local platforms while installing and enforcing corporate standard operating procedures.
This approach has a direct impact on the overall quality assurance strategy and on the management of product specifications.
InBev wants to deliver to its customers products with a consistent high quality. Any quality issue in any production unit can influence the credibility and image of brand names all over the world. The implementation of a multiplant LIMS was vital to the successful fulfilment of the InBev strategy.
The IT challenge
In order to optimise all quality operations, a professional laboratory information management system (LIMS) was needed.
Standard software offering standard operating procedures was required to centralise quality-related reporting, to harmonise processes in the laboratories and to ensure brand protection.
InBev also attached a great deal of importance to standardised roll-outs, a standardised approach of data handling and better quality control auditing possibilities.
About SIMATIC IT and the award-winning LIMS of Siemens
SIMATIC IT Unilab is a part of Siemens MES portfolio SIMATIC IT. SIMATIC IT not only includes a laboratory information management system, but also corporate product specification management, KPI management and plant performance analysis.
SIMATIC IT integrates quality in the production process, thus offering integrated quality. It manages the complete lifecycle of a product and eliminates the use of outdated products or product information on the manufacturing floor. SIMATIC IT Unilab, whether as a standalone version or as an integrated part of SIMATIC IT, is today one of the world's leading LIMS solutions with a top position in the process industry.
SIMATIC IT Unilab offers intelligent quality assurance. It manages all quality data and helps collecting these data from raw material, intermediate and finished product samples. It uses a central database concept with a predefined schema. This means that the information is always stored in the same structure, independent of the configuration.
SIMATIC IT Unilab can be easily configured for the specific needs of various types of laboratories including quality control, central services, and research and development. Designated plant or lab personnel have immediate access to SIMATIC IT Unilab data for integrated quality management throughout the enterprise.
The multilab concept of SIMATIC IT Unilab provides a multiplant LIMS solution for all quality control, service and R&D laboratories and guarantees that every lab department and user has a personalised environment that is tailored perfectly to the respective roles and needs – with personally selected language settings, tasks, data, layouts and preferences.
For more information contact Keshin Govender, Siemens Southern Africa, +27 (0)11 652 2412, keshin.govender@siemens.com, www.siemens.co.za
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