Category: Electrical & Automation

  • A Day in the Life of a Control Systems Engineer

    More Than Programming

    Ask most people what a control systems engineer does and they will guess it involves writing code for machines. That is part of it, but on an FMCG production site the role is much broader: part electrician, part programmer, part problem solver, and part project coordinator. At BevTech, control systems engineers work across Allen Bradley and Siemens PLC platforms on beverage and food manufacturing lines throughout Queensland, and no single day looks quite the same as the last. This article walks through what a typical day actually involves, from the early morning site visit through to the evening handover, to give a realistic picture of the role.

    Early Morning: Reviewing Overnight Alarms

    The day usually begins before arriving on site, reviewing any alarm logs or overnight call outs from client production lines. Modern PLC and HMI systems log fault history in detail, and a control systems engineer will often start by scanning through this data to spot patterns, a drive that has tripped twice in the past week, a sensor giving intermittent readings, or a communication fault between a PLC and a remote input output rack. This early diagnostic work often shapes the rest of the day’s priorities, particularly if a pattern suggests a developing fault that could cause unplanned downtime if left unaddressed.

    Mid Morning: On Site Fault Finding

    Once on site, a significant portion of the role involves hands on fault finding. This might mean tracing a wiring fault back from a motor to a control panel, checking analogue signal integrity on a flow sensor feeding a hot water rinse system, or working through PLC logic step by step to understand why a sequence is not advancing as expected. Fault finding on a live production line requires a particular mindset: working methodically under time pressure, because every hour a line is down is lost production for the client, while never cutting corners on safe isolation procedures.

    This is also where the breadth of BevTech’s specialisation matters. Because the team works across both Allen Bradley and Siemens platforms, a control systems engineer needs to be genuinely fluent in both ecosystems, from Studio 5000 and RSLogix through to TIA Portal, rather than being a specialist in only one manufacturer’s tools.

    Midday: Programming and Logic Development

    Not every day is reactive fault finding. Planned project work often fills the middle of the day, writing or modifying PLC logic for an automation upgrade, building HMI screens that give operators clearer visibility of a process, or configuring a variable speed drive for a new pump installation. This work draws heavily on the engineer’s understanding of the physical process being controlled, whether that is a glycol refrigeration system managing beer tank temperature, or a clean in place sequence cycling through caustic, acid, and rinse stages on a can seamer.

    Good control system programming in an FMCG environment is not just about making a machine run, it is about making it run safely, efficiently, and in a way that is maintainable by the next engineer who has to modify it in five years’ time. Clear, well documented logic is a genuine professional discipline, not an afterthought.

    Afternoon: Client Liaison and Commissioning

    A meaningful part of the role involves direct communication with client site staff and plant managers, explaining a fault in plain language, agreeing a plan for a planned shutdown, or walking an operator through changes made to an HMI screen. On commissioning days, this becomes even more central: testing new or modified control logic against the physical equipment, verifying safety interlocks function correctly, and working through a structured commissioning checklist before signing equipment back over to production.

    Commissioning a new system, such as an automated glycol refrigeration control upgrade or a new hot water rinse sequence, is one of the most satisfying parts of the role. It draws together weeks or months of design, programming, and coordination with mechanical and electrical trades into a single, tangible outcome: equipment running reliably and safely under the new control system.

    Late Afternoon: Documentation and Handover

    Engineering work is not finished when the equipment is running. Updating control philosophy documents, revising electrical drawings to reflect as built changes, and recording programme version history are all essential parts of the job, even if they are less visible than the hands on work. This discipline matters enormously in an industry where equipment often runs for a decade or more, and where the next engineer working on a system, whether from BevTech or elsewhere, needs accurate documentation to work safely and efficiently.

    Evening: On Call Readiness

    Because BevTech provides 24/7 electrical coverage to its FMCG clients, control systems engineers are part of a rostered on call system to support genuine emergencies outside standard hours. A beer tank losing refrigeration control, or a canning line stopping mid shift, cannot wait until the next business day. Being part of this coverage model is a core part of the role, and it reflects the seriousness with which BevTech treats its commitment to keeping client production lines running.

    Skills That Make a Strong Control Systems Engineer

    Technical ability with PLC platforms is only part of what makes someone effective in this role. Equally important is the ability to think through a physical process logically under pressure, understanding not just what a piece of logic does, but why the underlying mechanical or thermal process behaves the way it does, whether that is glycol flow through a heat exchanger or the sequencing logic in a caustic clean in place cycle. Strong control systems engineers develop a genuine mental model of the equipment they work on, not just the code controlling it.

    Communication skills matter just as much as technical depth, since a fault explained clearly to a plant manager, or a commissioning plan agreed clearly with production staff before work begins, prevents far more problems than they solve after the fact. The strongest engineers in this field combine deep technical competence with the ability to translate that competence into plain language for the people who rely on the systems they maintain.

    Working Across Multiple Client Sites

    Unlike an engineer employed directly by a single manufacturing site, a control systems engineer working for an engineering partner such as BevTech typically works across a range of FMCG client sites, from large scale beverage producers to smaller specialist manufacturers. This brings genuine variety, each site has its own equipment history, control philosophy, and operational quirks, and it also builds a much broader base of practical experience than working on a single facility ever could. Engineers who work this way often become the person a client turns to first, precisely because they bring pattern recognition and experience gathered from problems solved elsewhere, not just familiarity with one site’s systems.

    A Role Built on Variety and Trust

    What stands out across a typical day is the sheer variety, technical depth one hour, client communication the next, hands on fault finding followed by careful documentation. It is a role that rewards curiosity, discipline, and a genuine interest in how physical processes and control logic interact. For engineers who want to build a career grounded in real industrial systems rather than purely office based programming, this is exactly the kind of work BevTech offers across its Queensland client base.

  • Industrial Control System Cybersecurity Basics for FMCG Plant Managers

    An Increasingly Relevant Risk

    Cybersecurity has traditionally been treated as an information technology concern, separate from the operational technology running production equipment on a manufacturing floor. That separation is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. Modern PLC and HMI systems are frequently networked, whether for remote monitoring, integration with production data systems, or simple convenience of access, and this connectivity introduces genuine cybersecurity risk to equipment that was never originally designed with security in mind. For FMCG plant managers, understanding the basics of industrial control system cybersecurity is no longer optional, even without becoming a specialist in the field.

    Why Industrial Control Systems Are Different From IT Networks

    Standard information technology security practices do not translate directly to industrial control environments. A PLC controlling a glycol refrigeration system or a hot water rinse process cannot simply be patched and rebooted on a routine schedule the way an office computer might be, since doing so risks interrupting a live production process, and in some cases risks safety critical functions. Many industrial control systems, particularly older installations, run on legacy hardware and software versions that vendors no longer actively support with security updates, because replacing them would require significant capital investment and production downtime that is difficult to justify purely for cybersecurity reasons.

    This creates a genuine tension: the equipment running much of FMCG production is often less inherently secure than a typical office IT environment, while the consequences of a security incident, ranging from production downtime to safety system compromise, can be significantly more serious.

    Common Vulnerabilities on FMCG Production Sites

    Several patterns show up repeatedly when reviewing industrial control system security on manufacturing sites. Default or weak passwords on PLCs, HMIs, and network switches remain common, often unchanged since original commissioning years earlier. Flat network architecture, where production control systems sit on the same network as general office systems without meaningful segmentation, means a compromise anywhere on the network can potentially reach critical control equipment. Remote access solutions, often set up for convenient vendor support or engineer access, are sometimes configured without adequate authentication controls, creating an accessible entry point for anyone who discovers it.

    None of these vulnerabilities are exotic or difficult to understand, which is part of why they remain so common. Addressing them does not require deep cybersecurity specialisation, but it does require a deliberate, structured review, since these gaps rarely get identified through normal day to day operation of a production line.

    Practical Steps That Make a Genuine Difference

    Network segmentation is one of the most effective practical measures available. Separating production control networks from general office and internet connected networks, using firewalls or managed switches to control what traffic can pass between them, significantly reduces the risk that a compromise elsewhere in an organisation’s broader IT environment can reach critical control systems. This does not need to be an all or nothing architectural overhaul, it can be implemented progressively, starting with the most critical control systems.

    Reviewing and updating default credentials on PLCs, HMIs, and network infrastructure is a simple but frequently overlooked step, particularly on equipment that has been in service for years without a formal security review. Similarly, auditing remote access arrangements, understanding exactly who has remote access to production control systems and how that access is authenticated and logged, closes a common and easily exploited gap.

    Maintaining an accurate inventory of control system hardware and software versions is also genuinely valuable, not just for security purposes but for general engineering management. Knowing which PLCs are running unsupported firmware versions, and which network devices have known vulnerabilities, allows a manufacturer to make informed, risk based decisions about where to prioritise upgrades, rather than discovering these gaps only after an incident.

    Balancing Security With Operational Reality

    The goal of industrial control system cybersecurity is not to apply generic IT security practices wholesale to a production environment, but to apply security thinking in a way that respects the operational realities of running live manufacturing equipment. Changes need to be planned around production schedules, tested carefully before implementation, and weighed against the genuine risk they address, rather than pursued as a compliance exercise disconnected from actual risk. An engineering partner with genuine understanding of both the control systems involved and the practical constraints of a live production environment is better placed to strike this balance than a generic IT security provider working from outside the operational technology context.

    Where to Start

    For most FMCG manufacturers, a sensible starting point is a structured review of existing control system network architecture and access arrangements, identifying the most significant and most easily addressed gaps first. This is typically far more valuable than attempting a comprehensive security overhaul immediately, both because it delivers meaningful risk reduction sooner, and because it allows changes to be tested and validated incrementally rather than all at once across critical production infrastructure.

    The Role of Staff Awareness

    Technical controls such as network segmentation and credential management address only part of the risk. Many industrial control system security incidents originate not from sophisticated external attacks, but from simple human factors: a USB drive used to transfer a file between an infected office computer and a production control system, a shared password that has been passed between so many staff over the years that nobody can say who currently has access, or a vendor technician granted remote access for a single support task whose access was never subsequently revoked. Building basic security awareness among production and maintenance staff, without requiring them to become cybersecurity specialists, closes many of these gaps more effectively than technical controls alone.

    This does not require an elaborate training programme. Straightforward guidance on safe handling of removable media around control systems, a clear process for granting and revoking vendor remote access, and a simple, well understood policy on credential sharing address a meaningful proportion of the human factor risk present on most production sites.

    Working With External Vendors and Support Providers

    Most FMCG production sites rely on multiple external vendors for equipment support, from PLC manufacturers to specific machine OEMs, each of whom may require occasional remote or on site access to control systems. Establishing clear, consistent expectations for how this access is granted, authenticated, and time limited, rather than allowing each vendor relationship to develop its own informal arrangement, is a practical way to reduce the accumulated risk that builds up over years of ad hoc vendor access arrangements.

    Building Security Into Engineering Practice

    As BevTech continues to deliver control system upgrades and new automation projects across Allen Bradley and Siemens platforms for FMCG clients, cybersecurity considerations, appropriate network segmentation, credential management, and access control, are increasingly built into project scope from the outset, rather than treated as an afterthought once a system is already commissioned. For manufacturers wanting to understand their current exposure or plan a practical, prioritised approach to control system security, contact BevTech at 25 Silvio St, Richlands QLD 4077, or admin@bevtech.com.au.

  • Spare Parts and Obsolescence Management for Legacy PLCs

    A Risk That Builds Quietly

    Programmable logic controllers do not fail often, but when a legacy PLC does fail on a critical production system, the consequences can be severe if a replacement is not readily available. Many FMCG manufacturers are running control systems installed a decade or more ago, on hardware platforms that manufacturers such as Allen Bradley and Siemens have since superseded, moved to reduced support status, or discontinued entirely. Obsolescence risk on these systems tends to build quietly over years, largely invisible during normal operation, until the moment a component fails and a replacement cannot be sourced quickly, or at all.

    Understanding PLC Lifecycle Status

    Both major PLC manufacturers operate structured lifecycle programmes for their hardware platforms. Allen Bradley, for example, moves products through active, active mature, and discontinued phases, with spare parts availability and technical support generally becoming more limited as a product moves through this lifecycle. Siemens operates a broadly similar structure. Understanding where each PLC platform on a production site sits within its manufacturer’s lifecycle is the foundation of any sensible obsolescence management strategy, yet many manufacturers have never conducted this kind of audit across their installed control system base.

    A PLC platform reaching discontinued status does not mean it will fail imminently, many continue running reliably for years afterward, but it does mean that when a failure eventually occurs, sourcing a genuine replacement part becomes progressively more difficult and expensive, often requiring purchase through secondary markets with less certainty around part authenticity and condition.

    The True Cost of Reactive Obsolescence Management

    Manufacturers who address PLC obsolescence reactively, only when a failure actually occurs, face a genuinely difficult position. A critical production line is down, the specific PLC module required is no longer available through normal supply channels, and the options narrow quickly to an expensive expedited sourcing effort through secondary markets, or an emergency control system replacement project undertaken under significant time pressure, with all the cost and risk that entails compared to a planned upgrade.

    This reactive scenario is where the real cost of obsolescence becomes apparent, not in the eventual cost of an upgrade itself, which is often unavoidable regardless of timing, but in the lost production, expedited freight and labour costs, and compressed decision making that comes from managing the situation as an emergency rather than a planned project.

    Building a Practical Obsolescence Management Approach

    A structured approach starts with an audit of installed PLC hardware across a facility, documenting the specific platform, model, and lifecycle status of each control system, alongside how critical each one is to production continuity. This creates a clear picture of where genuine risk sits, distinguishing a discontinued PLC controlling a critical refrigeration system from a similarly aged PLC on a less critical, non production line application.

    From this audit, a manufacturer can make informed, risk based decisions about spare parts holding, maintaining critical spare modules on site or readily accessible for the highest risk, highest consequence systems, rather than either holding excessive spares across every piece of equipment or holding none at all and relying entirely on reactive sourcing when a failure occurs.

    Planned Migration as an Alternative to Reactive Replacement

    For control systems that are approaching or have already reached discontinued status on genuinely critical production equipment, planned migration to a current platform is generally a far better outcome than waiting for a failure to force the decision. A planned migration allows adequate time for proper design, testing, and commissioning, scheduling the changeover during a planned shutdown rather than an unplanned emergency, and often allows the opportunity to improve the control logic and functionality at the same time, rather than simply replacing like for like under time pressure.

    This is a genuinely different project, both in cost and outcome, to an emergency replacement forced by an unexpected failure. Manufacturers who plan migrations proactively, informed by a clear understanding of their obsolescence risk, consistently achieve better outcomes than those managing the same eventual transition reactively.

    Balancing Spares Holding Against Capital Tied Up in Inventory

    Holding spare PLC modules for every piece of equipment on a site is rarely a sensible approach, since it ties up capital in inventory that may never be used, particularly for lower risk, non critical applications. The more practical approach is a risk weighted strategy: holding genuine critical spares for the highest consequence systems, where downtime cost clearly justifies the inventory investment, while accepting a higher tolerance for sourcing delay on less critical applications where a brief period of downtime, while not ideal, does not represent a genuine production or safety crisis.

    Working With Manufacturer End of Life Notices

    Allen Bradley and Siemens both issue formal end of life and discontinuation notices as products move through their lifecycle, typically with a defined window during which spare parts and technical support remain available before a platform moves to fully unsupported status. Manufacturers who actively track these notices for the specific hardware installed across their site gain valuable lead time to plan a response, whether that is securing critical spares before a discontinued window closes, or beginning the design process for a planned migration project. Manufacturers who do not track these notices typically only discover a platform’s status at the point of failure, when the option to plan calmly has already been lost.

    Subscribing to manufacturer notification services, or working with an engineering partner who monitors this information as part of ongoing client support, is a low cost way to ensure these notices translate into timely action rather than being missed entirely.

    Documenting Control System Configuration as a Risk Reduction Measure

    Beyond hardware obsolescence itself, a related and often underappreciated risk is the loss of accurate configuration and programme documentation over time, particularly where a system has been modified by multiple parties across its service life without consistent version control. When a PLC eventually does need replacement, whether due to failure or planned migration, having accurate, current documentation of the existing control logic, I/O configuration, and any custom modifications significantly reduces the cost, time, and risk of the replacement project. Maintaining this documentation as an ongoing discipline, rather than attempting to reconstruct it after the fact, is a genuinely valuable and often overlooked part of managing obsolescence risk.

    Making Obsolescence Management Part of Ongoing Engineering Practice

    Obsolescence management works best as an ongoing discipline rather than a one off exercise, reviewed periodically as manufacturers update their lifecycle status and as production priorities evolve. An engineering partner with genuine, ongoing familiarity with a site’s control systems, of the kind BevTech develops through long term FMCG client relationships, is well placed to flag emerging obsolescence risk before it becomes a genuine emergency, and to support both spares strategy decisions and planned migration projects when the time comes. To discuss an audit of your facility’s PLC obsolescence risk, contact BevTech at 25 Silvio St, Richlands QLD 4077, or admin@bevtech.com.au.

  • How PLC Upgrades Cut Unplanned Downtime on Beverage Production Lines

    For procurement and operations leaders in food and beverage manufacturing, few line items are harder to justify in a capital budget than a control system upgrade. There is no new conveyor to point to, no shiny new filler, just a cabinet of relays, terminals, and a processor that has been quietly running the line for fifteen years. Yet ageing programmable logic controllers, or PLCs, are consistently one of the leading causes of unplanned downtime on Australian beverage and FMCG lines, and the cost of deferring an upgrade is almost always higher than the cost of the upgrade itself.

    The real cost of an ageing control system

    When a PLC fails on a production line, the cost is rarely limited to the repair invoice. A stopped filler or labeller on a beverage line can halt an entire production run, idle packaging staff, delay despatch, and in the worst cases put product quality at risk if temperature or pressure control is lost mid process. Add in the premium cost of emergency electrical callouts, the scarcity of technicians who still understand obsolete processor families, and the difficulty of sourcing spare parts for discontinued hardware, and the true cost of an unplanned breakdown climbs well beyond the headline repair figure.

    Older systems also tend to fail without warning. Where a modern PLC and HMI combination can flag drifting performance, intermittent faults, or component wear before a full failure occurs, legacy systems built on superseded processor families generally cannot. Operations teams are left reacting to breakdowns rather than planning around them, which is precisely the opposite of what a procurement function wants from its capital asset base.

    Signs a control system is due for renewal

    There are a handful of reliable indicators that a PLC upgrade should move up the priority list. Recurring, unexplained faults that electricians cannot fully diagnose are usually the first sign. So too is a growing reliance on a single technician or contractor who happens to understand the legacy programming, which creates a serious single point of failure for the business. If the manufacturer has discontinued support or spare parts for the processor family, every additional month of operation is a gamble. Finally, if the current system cannot talk to newer line equipment, vision systems, or data collection platforms, it is actively holding back the plant’s broader automation and reporting goals.

    What a structured PLC upgrade involves

    A properly scoped upgrade is not simply a hardware swap. It begins with an audit of the existing control philosophy, wiring, and I/O, followed by a design phase that maps out the new platform, typically built around Allen Bradley or Siemens processors depending on the existing plant standard and the skills available on site. From there, the programming is rebuilt or migrated, the HMI is redesigned for clarity, and the system is commissioned with minimal disruption to the production schedule, often during a planned shutdown window.

    One useful example is a recent project where an automated control system was implemented to manage two glycol refrigeration units responsible for cooling large beer tanks. The system, built on a Siemens 1500 series PLC with a Siemens touchscreen HMI and ABB variable speed drives, uses temperature and pressure feedback with PID control loops to regulate cooling precisely. Because beer temperature falling out of specification is a critical quality issue, the reliability of that control loop directly protects product quality, not just uptime. This is the kind of outcome a well-executed PLC upgrade should deliver, control that is both more stable and more transparent than what it replaced.

    Building the ROI case

    For an operations or procurement stakeholder, the business case for a PLC upgrade should be built around three numbers, the cost of historical unplanned downtime attributable to control faults, the premium paid for emergency electrical support versus planned maintenance rates, and the risk exposure created by relying on obsolete or single sourced expertise. When these are laid out against the cost of a structured upgrade, the payback period is frequently inside twelve to eighteen months, particularly on lines where downtime directly delays despatch or triggers contractual penalties with retail or wholesale customers.

    It is also worth factoring in the indirect benefits. A modern HMI gives operators clearer fault diagnostics, which reduces the time technicians spend troubleshooting and shortens mean time to repair when issues do occur. Better data visibility also supports broader continuous improvement initiatives, since production data becomes available for analysis rather than disappearing into a legacy black box.

    Choosing the right partner

    Because a PLC upgrade touches safety systems, production continuity, and product quality simultaneously, the choice of engineering partner matters as much as the choice of hardware platform. Bevtech Engineering and Automation has worked across the food and beverage manufacturing sector for over 25 years, with a team of control system engineers, industrial electricians, and TUV functional safety engineers experienced in both Allen Bradley and Siemens platforms. That dual platform capability is particularly useful for sites that have grown through acquisition or expansion and ended up with a mixed fleet of control systems, since it avoids locking the business into a single vendor relationship for future support.

    Bevtech also offers 24/7 electrical shift coverage, which matters during the commissioning phase of an upgrade, when a new system needs close monitoring through its first full production cycles. For plant and operations managers planning a control system renewal, that combination of multi platform expertise and ongoing maintenance support reduces the risk profile of the project considerably.

    Next steps

    If your facility is relying on a control system that nobody fully understands, or your maintenance team is spending more time firefighting electrical faults than running planned preventative work, it is worth having a conversation before the next failure forces the decision. Bevtech Engineering and Automation, based at 25 Silvio St, Richlands QLD, can assess your existing control architecture and outline a staged upgrade path that fits your production calendar and budget cycle. Contact the team on +61 400 881 321 or admin@bevtech.com.au to arrange a site assessment.

  • Allen Bradley vs Siemens: Choosing the Right PLC Platform for Your FMCG Plant

    Few decisions in plant engineering generate as much internal debate as the choice between Allen Bradley and Siemens as a PLC platform standard. Both are mature, capable systems used extensively across Australian food and beverage manufacturing, and both can deliver excellent reliability when properly specified and maintained. For procurement and operations leaders, the more useful question is not which brand is objectively superior, but which platform best fits the existing plant environment, the available technician pool, and the long term support model the business wants to rely on.

    Hardware ecosystem and plant standardisation

    Allen Bradley, built on the Rockwell Automation ecosystem, tends to be the more common standard among manufacturers with strong ties to North American equipment suppliers, while Siemens has a deep installed base across European sourced machinery and many Australian beverage and dairy operations. For a plant building a new line from scratch, this is a relatively open decision. For most existing FMCG sites, however, the practical answer is largely already decided by what is already installed. Mixing platforms across a single production line, while sometimes unavoidable when integrating third party OEM equipment, adds complexity to fault finding and spares holding, so the strategic goal for most plants should be consolidating toward one primary standard wherever practical.

    Programming environment and integration

    Allen Bradley’s Studio 5000 environment and Siemens’ TIA Portal are both capable, modern programming environments, and the gap between them has narrowed considerably over the past decade. Where differences matter more in practice is integration with peripheral equipment. Siemens PLCs tend to integrate cleanly with Siemens drives, HMIs, and safety relays in a tightly coupled ecosystem, which is useful for projects like temperature and pressure controlled refrigeration systems, where PID loops, variable speed drives, and HMI feedback all need to work together reliably. Allen Bradley offers similarly tight integration within its own ecosystem and tends to have stronger native support for certain robotics and vision system integrations common in high speed packaging lines.

    For a plant manager evaluating a new automation project, the practical question is which platform the existing line equipment, OEM machinery, and any planned future expansions are likely to use. A mismatch here creates ongoing integration friction that outweighs any inherent advantage of either brand.

    Technician availability and support risk

    This is where the decision becomes genuinely strategic rather than technical. Both Allen Bradley and Siemens have a reasonable base of qualified technicians across South East Queensland and the broader Australian east coast, but availability shifts regionally and by industry. A plant that standardises on a platform with thin local technician coverage creates a support risk that only becomes obvious during an emergency breakdown, when the nearest qualified engineer may be hours away or already committed elsewhere.

    This is one of the strongest arguments for working with an engineering partner who maintains genuine dual platform capability rather than specialising exclusively in one brand. Bevtech Engineering and Automation’s team of control system engineers and industrial electricians work across both Allen Bradley and Siemens platforms, supported by TUV functional safety engineers for safety critical integration work. That breadth means a plant is not locked into a single support relationship, and it allows a phased migration strategy if a site is consolidating from a mixed fleet toward one standard over time, rather than requiring a disruptive single event changeover.

    Total cost of ownership

    Procurement teams evaluating PLC platform decisions should look beyond the upfront hardware quote. Spare parts pricing, software licensing models, the cost of training or hiring technicians familiar with the platform, and the resale or repurposing value of decommissioned hardware all factor into total cost of ownership. Siemens hardware has historically commanded a price premium in the Australian market relative to Allen Bradley in some product categories, though this varies by component family and has narrowed in recent years. The more material cost driver is usually the labour market for technicians, since a plant with a thin local pool of qualified Siemens or Allen Bradley engineers will pay a premium for emergency support regardless of the hardware cost difference.

    A practical decision framework

    For most FMCG plant managers, the decision comes down to four questions. What platform does the majority of existing line equipment already use. What platform do the in house maintenance team and preferred service partners already support. What does planned future capital equipment, particularly from key OEM suppliers, typically arrive configured with. And finally, is there a credible path to consolidate toward a single standard over the next capital cycle, reducing long term spares and training overhead.

    Working through these questions with an integrator who is not commercially tied to a single hardware vendor produces a more honest recommendation than working with a reseller who only carries one brand.

    Get an independent assessment

    Bevtech Engineering and Automation has supported Australian food and beverage manufacturers across both Allen Bradley and Siemens platforms for over 25 years, including direct work with major industry names across the FMCG sector. If your plant is weighing a platform decision for a new line, an expansion, or a phased consolidation of legacy systems, the team can provide an independent assessment based on your existing equipment fleet and maintenance resourcing. Contact Bevtech on +61 400 881 321 or admin@bevtech.com.au, or visit the team at 25 Silvio St, Richlands QLD.

  • The ROI Case for Machine Safety System Upgrades in Manufacturing

    Machine safety upgrades sit in an awkward position on most capital expenditure lists. They rarely improve output directly, they are often framed internally as a compliance obligation rather than a business investment, and they compete for budget against projects with a more obvious productivity return. Yet for procurement and operations leaders responsible for FMCG and beverage manufacturing sites, machine safety system upgrades carry a return on investment that is just as real as a throughput improvement, it simply shows up as avoided cost rather than added revenue.

    Reframing safety as risk reduction, not just compliance

    The compliance framing of machine safety, while accurate, undersells the financial argument. A serious safety incident on a production line carries direct costs including workers compensation claims, increased insurance premiums, regulator investigation time, potential fines, and the operational disruption of an incident investigation that can halt a line for days. There are also harder to quantify but very real costs in staff morale, recruitment difficulty, and reputational exposure, particularly for FMCG manufacturers supplying major retail or beverage brands who increasingly audit supplier safety performance as part of their own risk management.

    When safety upgrades are evaluated purely against a compliance checklist, it becomes easy to defer them indefinitely as long as the plant has not yet had an incident. A more useful framing for procurement is to treat machine safety investment the same way the business treats insurance, as a calculated trade between a known, budgeted cost now and a much larger, unpredictable cost later.

    What drives the need for a safety upgrade

    Production lines accumulate safety gaps gradually rather than all at once. A guard gets modified during a maintenance fix and never properly reinstated to specification. A machine is integrated with new equipment and the interlocking logic is not fully updated to reflect the new combined hazard profile. An ageing safety relay or light curtain reaches end of life and is quietly bypassed during a breakdown to keep the line running, with the bypass never formally closed out. None of these individually look like a major issue, but together they represent a accumulating risk profile that a structured safety audit will usually surface in detail.

    A proper risk assessment, carried out by a qualified functional safety engineer, evaluates each hazard against the actual operating conditions of the machine, not just its original design intent, and identifies where current control measures fall short of the required safety integrity level.

    What a structured safety upgrade involves

    A well run safety upgrade programme typically starts with a site wide risk assessment, prioritising machines by hazard severity and likelihood of exposure. From there, a remediation plan is developed covering guarding, interlocking, emergency stop circuits, and where required, full design drawings showing the updated safety architecture. Corrective actions are then implemented in priority order, often scheduled around planned maintenance shutdowns to minimise additional production disruption.

    This is specialist work. TUV certified functional safety engineers bring formal qualification in safety integrity level assessment and safety circuit design, which matters both for getting the engineering right and for demonstrating due diligence if the safety case is ever reviewed by a regulator or insurer following an incident elsewhere in the industry.

    The downtime argument

    Beyond incident avoidance, there is a more immediate operational case for safety upgrades. Poorly designed or ageing safety systems frequently cause nuisance stoppages, false trips, and operator workarounds that themselves create new risk. A modern, correctly specified safety system with properly zoned interlocking can actually reduce unplanned stoppages compared to an outdated system prone to spurious trips, while simultaneously closing genuine hazard gaps. This is a useful point for procurement teams building a business case, since it allows the safety upgrade to be partially justified on uptime grounds rather than risk mitigation alone.

    Building the business case

    For capital approval, the strongest safety upgrade business cases combine three elements, a documented risk assessment identifying specific hazard gaps and their severity rating, an estimate of avoided cost based on industry incident data and the plant’s own insurance and workers compensation history, and a secondary operational benefit such as reduced nuisance stoppages or improved maintenance access. Presenting safety spend this way, alongside the compliance obligation, tends to secure faster approval than a compliance argument alone.

    Working with a qualified partner

    Bevtech Engineering and Automation’s team includes TUV functional safety engineers who can provide full risk assessments, design drawings, and corrective action plans for machine safety upgrades across food and beverage manufacturing sites. With over 25 years working in FMCG environments, the team understands the practical constraints of upgrading safety systems on live production lines without unnecessary downtime. To arrange a site safety assessment, contact Bevtech on +61 400 881 321 or admin@bevtech.com.au, or visit 25 Silvio St, Richlands QLD.

  • Why 24/7 Electrical Shift Coverage Protects Your Bottom Line

    Most FMCG and beverage production lines do not run on a tidy nine to five schedule, and increasingly neither does the equipment that keeps them running. Multi shift and continuous production models are now standard across much of the Australian beverage manufacturing sector, yet electrical maintenance coverage at many sites still effectively stops when the day shift electrician clocks off. For operations and procurement leaders, that gap between production hours and maintenance coverage hours represents one of the more avoidable sources of lost output on the plant floor.

    The hidden cost of the coverage gap

    When an electrical fault occurs outside business hours on a site without dedicated after hours coverage, the typical response is an emergency callout to a third party contractor, who may not be familiar with the plant’s specific control architecture, wiring history, or past fault patterns. The result is usually a longer time to diagnose the issue, a premium rate for the emergency visit, and in many cases a temporary fix rather than a permanent repair, since an unfamiliar technician working under time pressure on an unfamiliar system is naturally inclined toward the fastest safe resolution rather than the most durable one.

    Multiply this across a year of night and weekend production, and the cumulative cost, in lost output, premium callout rates, and repeat visits for issues that were only partially resolved the first time, frequently exceeds what a retained shift coverage arrangement would have cost outright.

    Where the risk concentrates

    Certain systems are particularly exposed to after hours failure risk on beverage and food production sites. Refrigeration and glycol cooling systems, which often run continuously regardless of production shift patterns, are a clear example, since a control fault affecting temperature regulated tanks can put product quality at risk within hours if not addressed promptly. CIP, clean in place, systems running scheduled cleaning cycles overnight are another, since a fault partway through a cleaning cycle can delay the next production run if not resolved before the morning shift starts. Packaging and filling line electrical faults during night shift production are the most direct hit to output, since every minute of downtime on a running line is lost throughput that cannot easily be recovered later in the production schedule.

    What 24/7 coverage actually looks like

    Effective round the clock electrical support is more than simply having a phone number to call. The value comes from familiarity, technicians who already understand the plant’s specific control systems, wiring history, and common fault patterns will diagnose and resolve issues faster than a generalist contractor encountering the site for the first time. This is why retained shift coverage arrangements with a consistent engineering partner tend to outperform ad hoc emergency callout relationships, even when the hourly rate looks similar on paper.

    A well structured coverage arrangement typically includes electricians available across rostered shifts aligned to the plant’s own production schedule, proactive electrical audits during quieter periods to catch developing faults before they cause a stoppage, and a documented fault history that builds institutional knowledge of the site over time rather than starting from zero with every callout.

    Building the business case

    For procurement teams evaluating whether to invest in retained 24/7 electrical coverage, the comparison should be built around three figures, the historical cost of after hours emergency callouts including premium rates and repeat visits, the value of production lost during after hours electrical faults over the past twelve to twenty four months, and the cost of a retained coverage arrangement scaled to the plant’s actual shift pattern. In facilities running genuine round the clock or extended multi shift production, retained coverage almost always wins this comparison once lost production value is properly accounted for, since even a few hours of unplanned downtime on a high volume filling line can outweigh a full year of coverage cost.

    Annual shutdown support as a related consideration

    The same logic extends to planned annual shutdown periods, where compressed timeframes mean any electrical issue uncovered during a shutdown needs immediate resolution to avoid delaying the restart of production. An engineering partner who already provides ongoing shift coverage is naturally better positioned to support shutdown work too, since they arrive already familiar with the site rather than needing to be briefed from scratch under time pressure.

    A partner built for continuous production environments

    Bevtech Engineering and Automation provides 24/7 electrical shift coverage for food and beverage manufacturers across South East Queensland, supporting installations, maintenance day repairs, preventative maintenance, proactive electrical audits, general site maintenance, and annual shutdown support. The team’s specialisation in FMCG environments, built over more than 25 years, means technicians arrive with genuine familiarity with the equipment, control platforms, and production pressures specific to beverage and food manufacturing. To discuss a coverage arrangement suited to your shift pattern, contact Bevtech on +61 400 881 321 or admin@bevtech.com.au, or visit the team at 25 Silvio St, Richlands QLD.