Information infrastructures for utilities management in the brewing industry
Lees M., Ellen R., Steffens M., Brodie P., Mareels I., Evans R.
There is an increasing focus on sustainability in manufacturing industries. Operations management and plant/process control have a significant impact on production efficiency and hence environmental footprint. Information systems are an increasingly important tool for monitoring, managing and optimising production efficiency and resource consumption. An advanced Utilities Management System (UMS), that operates on the G2® real-time intelligent systems platform, has been developed at the Yatala brewery, Australia. An important characteristic of the UMS is its strong integration with the existing information and automation systems at the plant. The tight integration was required to maximise effectiveness and ease of use as well as to minimise development effort and cost. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.