Initiated by SAB Miller, the commissioning of the brewery – which involved system layout design, mechanical piping assembly, automation wiring, PLC programming and SCADA design – was carried out by John Cluett, SAB Miller (who assisted with the details of the design layout); Thabo Baloyi, Wits Masters Student; Antony Higginson, Wits Masters Student and Gary Wilson, Siemens Industry Automation.

The entire system has all the elements of a real brewery process – only on a much smaller scale! Boasting a capacity to brew and ferment 100 litres of wort per batch, the plant comprises equipment sponsored by companies such as APV/SPX Flow Technology, Siemens, Falcon Engineering SA, ECOLAB and SAB, amongst others. In particular, the stainless steel tanks were donated by Falcon Engineering SA, the temperature sensors were sponsored by WIKA, an electrical panel was provided by MCA and all the automation equipment was supplied by Siemens.
The system also includes two heaters, three pumps which are connected to three Siemens Micromaster drives, six Siemens temperature transmitters, a Siemens Massflo flowmeter, analytics, a linear control valve and a Siemens S7-300 PLC system that has 16 digital inputs, 16 relay outputs, 8 analogue inputs, 4 analogue outputs and Profibus and Ethernet interfaces.

The project is close to the heart of Gary Wilson from Siemens Industry Automation who was able to monitor its progress from beginning to end. "Although it took a lot of work and time, this project was well worth the effort", says Gary. "Some people may ask why this project should be highlighted. The reason is simple: projects like these are essential to promote real work experience within the electrical and chemical engineering fields in our tertiary education institutions." To date, other micro breweries have also been automated around South Africa.