Understanding energy consumption

LRS was formed in 2014, and is part of Suntory Beverage & Food Europe. The company’s UK site is a 53 acre facility in Coleford, Gloucestershire, where it produces Lucozade Energy, Lucozade Sport, Lucozade Zero and Ribena. The factory produces over 1.2 billion bottles of drink each year. 

The company has partnered with Wonderware UK & Ireland as part of the company’s goal to reduce its factory’s energy consumption by 5% year-on-year. In order to make reductions, the company required a complete breakdown of site energy usage, so looked for an expert-driven energy management solution. Lucozade Ribena Suntory’s mission is to reduce its impact on the environment and work in harmony with people and nature. The partnership with Wonderware will help the company understand its energy consumption in more detail, supporting the business in achieving this goal.

The company has now implemented Wonderware System Platform, which can be attached to Lucozade Ribena Suntory’s individually metered systems to convert the raw energy data into actionable information, allowing LRS to better understand its energy consumption patterns and costs, and to identify potential inefficiencies.

Built like an operating system for industrial applications, Wonderware System Platform provides configuration, deployment, communication, security, data connectivity and is capable of connecting to hundreds of field devices and plant systems.

Behavioural change

LRS is also using Wonderware’s Operational Intelligence Software dashboards to raise awareness of energy consumption and promote behavioural change. The real-time feedback and live usage data on the dashboards will allow team members to see how their individual actions can have an impact on energy use across the site. This focus on employee behaviour change has already worked for Lucozade Ribena Suntory in the field of health and safety. The company recently announced 365 days without Lost Time Accidents, mainly as a result of individuals taking ownership of health and safety on-site. 

Gary Burford, energy and sustainability manager at LRS, said: “Energy management is a continuous improvement activity and we’ve already undertaken in excess of 26 energy saving projects in the last four years. To make further improvements, we need to understand where we are using energy across the site and improve the visibility and accessibility of that information to allow us to make changes.

“We believe the graphical interfaces and real-time data offered by the Wonderware solutions will engage our people, giving them an immediate awareness of their impact on energy usage and empowering them to make the small changes that can, over time, deliver big results.”

The Wonderware System Platform is said to offer the next step in industrial software design and management by connecting people, processes and information, enabling users to drive more performance from their assets, collaborate better and generate more value from their existing automation systems

The Platform acts as an ‘Industrial Operating System’ by providing common services such as configuration, deployment, communication, security, data connectivity and people collaboration. These services allow users to build a single, unified ‘Plant Model’ that logically represents their processes, physical equipment and industrial systems, making the design and maintenance of these systems more efficient and flexible, and less risky. The Plant Model also gives essential context to data, greatly assisting with diagnostics and troubleshooting, as well as providing valuable system documentation throughout the system lifecycle.

SolutionsPT is sole distributor for Wonderware products, training and services in the UK & Ireland.