Tag: unplanned downtime

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drifting performance, intermittent faults, or component wear before a full failure occurs, legacy systems built on superseded processor families generally cannot.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

  • The Real Cost of Unplanned Breakdowns in FMCG Manufacturing

    The Real Cost of Unplanned Breakdowns in FMCG Manufacturing

    When an unplanned breakdown stops a production line, the first number most procurement and finance teams see is the repair invoice. It is also, almost always, the smallest number in the true cost of that breakdown. For FMCG manufacturers operating on tight production schedules and contractual delivery commitments, the real cost of unplanned downtime extends well beyond the technician’s callout fee and parts cost into a category of losses that are harder to see but considerably larger in total.

    The repair invoice is the smallest piece

    A breakdown repair invoice typically reflects labour hours and parts cost for the specific fix. What it does not reflect is the lost production during the stoppage, the idle labour cost of operators and packaging staff standing by while the line is down, the premium rate frequently charged for emergency callout response outside standard business hours, and the knock on disruption to the production schedule for the rest of the shift or day. A two hour electrical fault on a filling line does not just cost two hours of lost output, it can also delay the changeover scheduled immediately afterward, push despatch loading later than planned, and in some cases require overtime labour to recover the lost production before a despatch deadline.

    Contractual and customer relationship exposure

    FMCG manufacturers supplying major retail chains or beverage brand customers frequently operate under delivery commitments with real contractual consequences for missed despatch windows. A breakdown that delays a production run by even half a day can cascade into a missed delivery slot, which in some retail supply relationships carries financial penalties and in all cases carries reputational cost with a customer who has their own downstream commitments depending on reliable supply. This category of cost rarely appears on an internal maintenance cost report at all, since it shows up as a customer service issue or a sales team escalation rather than a maintenance line item, which makes it easy to systematically underweight when building the business case for maintenance investment.

    The hidden premium of reactive maintenance

    Beyond the direct cost of any single breakdown, a plant that operates primarily in reactive mode, fixing things only after they fail, pays a structural premium compared to a plant running a genuine preventative maintenance programme. Emergency callout rates for after hours electrical and mechanical support are typically higher than standard or scheduled maintenance rates. Reactive repairs are also more likely to involve a degree of guesswork or temporary fix under time pressure, increasing the likelihood of a repeat failure and a second round of breakdown cost for an issue that a planned, unhurried repair would have resolved properly the first time.

    Quality and compliance risk during breakdowns

    For beverage and food manufacturers specifically, certain breakdowns carry quality and compliance risk that compounds the financial cost further. A refrigeration control fault affecting temperature regulated product storage, or a CIP system failure that leaves cleaning standards unverified, can put product quality and food safety compliance at risk in ways that extend well beyond the immediate production line stoppage, potentially affecting product already in the supply chain and triggering a far more serious and costly response than a standard mechanical breakdown would.

    Building an accurate cost picture

    For procurement and operations teams looking to build an accurate breakdown cost figure to inform maintenance investment decisions, a useful approach is to track, over a representative period, the direct repair cost, the estimated lost production value based on line speed and contribution margin, idle labour cost during the stoppage, any despatch delay or customer service consequence, and any quality or compliance follow up cost where relevant. Summing these across a year of breakdown history typically reveals a total cost several multiples higher than the direct repair invoice total alone, which provides a much more compelling and accurate basis for evaluating investment in preventative maintenance, retained electrical coverage, or control system upgrades aimed at reducing breakdown frequency.

    Shifting the cost curve

    The practical response to this cost picture is not simply spending more on maintenance in general, but shifting spend deliberately from reactive, emergency response toward planned preventative maintenance, proactive electrical and mechanical audits, and where ageing control systems are a recurring fault source, targeted upgrades that address root causes rather than repeatedly patching symptoms. This shift typically reduces total maintenance and downtime cost even as planned maintenance spend increases, because the avoided breakdown cost, including its full hidden cost structure, outweighs the additional planned maintenance investment.

    A partner focused on reducing total breakdown cost

    Bevtech Engineering and Automation supports food and beverage manufacturers with electrical and mechanical breakdown response, preventative maintenance programmes, and proactive equipment audits aimed at reducing the frequency and severity of unplanned downtime, drawing on over 25 years of FMCG specific experience. To build an accurate picture of your facility’s true breakdown cost and discuss a maintenance strategy to reduce it, contact Bevtech on +61 400 881 321 or admin@bevtech.com.au, or visit 25 Silvio St, Richlands QLD.