Tag: Allen Bradley

  • 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flag drifting performance, intermittent faults, or component wear before a full failure occurs, legacy systems built on superseded processor families generally cannot.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.