Connoisseurs of award winning Three Ships Whisky will appreciate that the Distell plant in Wellington, Cape Town, takes its quality very seriously. It was this consideration, plus their keen eye for operational efficiency that prompted them to implement an Adroit supervisory control and data (scada) system to monitor and control their processes.
Andy Watts is the man who produces Three Ships Whisky with fingerprint precision at the state-of-the-art distillery in the Western Cape. "We are able to recreate the same superb product day after day using a combination of technology and the human touch - we have got the best of both worlds here and that is the reason why Three Ships is able to consistently do well in tastings.
"The recent haul of gold and silver medals at the 2006 International Wine & Spirits competition held in London confirms that statement."
Three Ships is a blended whisky, therefore containing both grain and malt whiskies. The raw materials are barley and maize which are first milled and then put through a mashing process to convert the starch to sugar. Yeast is then added to start the fermentation process that converts the sugar to alcohol. It then goes through either a column distillation (grain whisky) or pot still distillation (malt whisky) process to extract the spirit and to purify it. From there the spirit moves onto the maturation process, where it spends a minimum of three years developing in oak barrels before being able to be called 'whisky'.
With the exception of the maturation phase, which takes place in a varied selection of barrels (mostly bourbon and sherry), the entire process is operated through the Adroit system. With the milling system 100% monitored and controlled by the scada, and the mashing, distilling and fermentation partly operated by the system due to the fact that the plant is not fully automated (this historically significant building was purchased in 1886), leaving some tasks, such as the opening and closing of valves, to be done by hand. The Adroit system also performs all the monitoring of boiler and effluent plant.
The Adroit system was implemented about 10 years ago, and replaced the legacy Turbo Link software thereby moving the technology from a DOS platform to that of Windows. Since then, Distell has continued to upgrade to and now run on the latest Adroit version 6 on the Windows XP platform.
Deon Laubsher, owner of systems integration company, Devcotech, that set up and maintains the system says: "Adroit's best features are its engineering and ease of use. From a systems integration point of view, the total set up of the product is not as time consuming as other products, and the HMI is so easy to use that even the operators can make a few changes if they want."
Endress+Hauser manufactures most of the instruments used, with 4-20 mA signals, and a digital interface into motors and other mechanical machinery. A dual server, hot standby system ensures that it is backed-up continuously and enables Distell to use any of the operator interfaces without the server operating.
Temperatures, flows and pressures must be correct to get the right alcohol values in the system. The Three Ships plant relies on Adroit to monitor and control all temperature and pressure probes used for heating and cooling. Certain parameters controlled by Adroit are critical in ensuring a cost effective and efficient process.
Trending is set up for 12-hour operator shifts, plus weekly and monthly production trends. Devcotech used some scripting to extract data in the system format. Six user-interfaces connect the process manager, operators, site manager and maintenance crew to the scada with link-ups through which they receive the reporting and alarm notification. Alarming is supported by 24/7 operators who receive notice audibly, onscreen and via a flashing light system in the plant. Devcotech used standard Adroit mimics and also drew some of the graphics. To make HMI highly intuitive and the components easily recognisable, Laubscher utilised bitmap photographs of the plant, which he animated to indicate the realtime status of the equipment.
The Adroit Scada integrates with a single PLC via a Modbus Ethernet that runs Modbus protocol so it is extremely quick. The connection was recently changed from a Modbus serial, increasing the speed from 1,6 kilohertz boards to 100 megahertz.
Marlene Bester, process manager at Distell says: "We are very happy with Adroit, it is great to have one program to monitor and operate the entire plant. What is also nice is that it can easily be expanded and is easy to use.
"We use the Adroit system extensively to track what happens to every batch that goes through the plant. From an efficiency point of view, using the scada, we can also employ fewer people to do the same job."
For more information contact Charles Hudgson, Adroit Technologies, +27 (0) 11 658 8100, [email protected]
| Tel: | +27 11 658 8100 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
| www: | www.adroit.co.za |
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