Asahi Breweries Moves to Flexible MES Solution | Accenture

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Crafting an Ancient Beverage in Futuristic Breweries

Cheers to a High-Tech, Efficient Manufacturing System for Beer Call for Change

Brewing beer is one of humankind’s oldest speed and experience. In addition, the distributed trades, with a history reaching back architecture to production facilities did not allow thousands of years. The recipe is more or less version management to ensure the consistent the same as it was when Mesopotamian usage across the breweries to input and track farmers first figured it out: boil water and data. grains, let the wort cool, let it ferment, then raise a mug to good health. Fast forward to Asahi’s Eastern European breweries sought a modern times, and the beer industry is new, centralized solution so production subject to an infinite range of complex issues, managers would have clearer insights as well as including challenges of mass production, real-time, data-driven decision-making power competition, international production and that could boost the breweries’ efficiency and distribution, and unprecedented mergers and improve their user experience. On a brewery acquisitions, just to name a few. floor, for example, operators required a simple way to make production declarations to and from In 2017 when Anheuser-Busch InBev acquired multiple vessels simultaneously. They also rival SABMiller, regulators required several Central needed to make tracking the movement of and Eastern European breweries to be spun off. product to warehouses a time-efficient, Japanese Asahi Group Holding, in business since automated process—particularly in error-prone 1889, agreed to acquire the brands. breweries with several small production vessels to keep track of. In addition, the breweries The brands Asahi Group Holding acquired in needed to harmonize their tracking and usage of Central and Eastern Europe, including the world- packaging equipment, as some facilities used famous Czech beer Pilsner Urquell, were crafted Excel-based tracking, some sites used in 10 production sites in the Czech Republic, homegrown non-standard solutions and some Slovakia, Poland and Romania. All were operating used package solutions. Along with tracking data on a manufacturing execution system (MES) that differently, the facilities were also reporting data was close to the end of its lifecycle and no longer in their own ways, even manually copying and supported, which created gaps in user response pasting figures into spreadsheets.

Accenture started with an interactive information from the brewing machinery. successful integration and launch. The workshop, where they worked with the Together, MII and PCo brought myriad team held demo sessions for Asahi’s Central and Eastern European immediate benefits to the party. representatives from the production sites breweries to define the problems and in each country and remained in touch then create an overall roadmap toward All in all, the new MES significantly with them throughout the development solving them. The team also quickly simplified the order-management process so they could see the progress developed a simple prototype to process for operators and managers on and provide feedback. demonstrate their ability to deliver the the brewery shop floor. First, it offers required solution. quick and automated order confirmation. This early user engagement also helped Then, all the process steps from start to maintain an overall sentiment of The focus was to build a faster and better finish—as well as key operating cooperation from the project’s beginning user interface (UI) than the brewers’ parameters (KOPs)—are available on one to its end. Requests for changes to the legacy system. The team opted to screen and fed automatically from build were therefore easier to manage implement SAP MII (Manufacturing control and automation systems. The and facilitate, which in turn helped the Integration and Intelligence), a user- system also provides traceability in a breweries envision the usability and friendly application that links clean, easy-to-read graphical report. The power of the final product as it was being manufacturing with back-office business entire process is now quick and easy for built. systems such as production planning, facilities to perform the business process asset care and quality management. It efficiently, as well as focus on the Additionally, Accenture has a strong also provides analytics and workflow technological process. What’s more, the Industry X presence in Cluj-Napoca, enhancements to support production system was built to eliminate data Romania. So when the team hit the and improve quality-control procedures. recapturing. integration testing phase, it was able to In addition to MII, SAP PCo (Plant mobilize additional, local resources to Connectivity) was used to collect The end users’ adoption of the new work hands-on with the breweries when brewing- and packaging-related system, however, was key to its and where they were needed.

Because beer-brewing ingredients are expensive agricultural screens, so staff aren’t wasting time inputting vessel-by- products, brewers need real-time insights into demand and vessel information. Operators can also now access a production capacity, so they don’t over- or under-procure standard dashboard for the packaging equipment that ingredients, never mind packaging materials such as bottles displays KPIs based on the data coming from the and cans. Additionally, beer is a perishable product, so automation layer of the system. breweries must craft the volumes the market requires and deliver the beer fresh and on time. The implemented MES Creating an unplanned order in exceptional cases, sending it solution makes all this possible—as it can keep pace with to ERP, then releasing the order to production was improved order flow. from about 20 minutes, under the old system, to just two minutes in the new SAP MII and PCo system. With a new The MES pilot project was delivered in only nine months, feature in the system, some orders can even go from with the subsequent rollout to nine breweries completed in confirmation to production immediately, skipping the just six more months. release phase entirely.

Critically, the new system addressed the breweries’ pain Most importantly, the new system set up the points in terms of capturing, tracking and reporting accurate breweries to be flexible as their business needs data—inputs are now mostly automated in a single SAP change. The system also can be configured by local HANA database. The time to access data and generate daily teams, without the need to involve an external and weekly reports has been vastly reduced since there’s no supplier. Moreover, additional time-saving and user- more manual handling of data in spreadsheets or systems experience functionality is slated for MII, including unique to each facility. the ability to access the system from tablets and mobile devices. The MES solution was also enhanced with functionality that allows operators to search by batch and visualize end-to-end Soon Asahi managers will be able to run the efficient material flow, so batch information is now in a single system. production of an entire brewery using a smartphone, then What’s more, production declarations to and from single or go home and raise a mug to a job well done! multiple sources are easily accessible from the operators’

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