Yalumba is Australia's oldest family-owned winery and one of the country's largest wine exporters. Its Angaston winery was founded in 1849 in South Australia's Barossa Valley. In recent years, demand for Yalumba wines has grown to exceed the processing capacity of the company's Angaston facility, so Yalumba established its "Moppa" wine processing plant. After a two-year fast-track project, the Moppa winery commenced crushing grapes in January 2005. It is now the primary producer of the company's popular Oxford Landing and cask wine varieties.

Yalumba services manager Peter Graue is responsible for maintaining the automated processing systems of the Angaston and Moppa wineries. Yalumba's vision for Moppa, he says, was an environmentally friendly plant using the latest in winemaking technology to produce a consistent product, plus a new and unique process stream methodology.

Graue says an important goal for the new plant—which can process 30,000 tons of grapes per year—was to achieve continuous production flow via a sophisticated automation and control system. Controlling fermentation rate and minimizing oxidation are critical, and each is highly dependent on temperature. The secret, says Graue, is the automated process, which ensure the grapes are fermented under optimum conditions despite high-volume throughput.

Each process stream begins at one of three receive hopper/crusher bays, where loads of grapes are converted into "must," a mix of juice, skin and seeds. The must is then pumped through one of three "must chillers" to reduce temperature to about 12° C. To produce white wine, the juice is extracted from the skin and seeds in three steps prior to fermentation; red wine is fermented with the skin included. Premium juice/wine is drained and kept separate from the second and third streams of extracted product through subsequent processing and storage.

The automation system controls numerous process streams while allowing winemakers to apply their experience to achieve the desired result. South Australian industrial engineering group, Camms, delivered turnkey electrical and industrial controls to the new plant in just under seven months. Rockwell Automation's Integrated Architecture served as the foundation of the system, in part because Rockwell's technology had been used at the Angaston winery for more than a decade.

The primary user interface for the system is a fully redundant supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) server supported by five onsite clients, each running Rockwell Software RSView Supervisory Edition software. Winemakers and operators use the SCADA system to specify process streams, crushing speeds and fermentation schedules, as well as monitor operational status of the entire plant. For label integrity, the SCADA system also integrates with Yalumba's proprietary "wine management system," a noncommercial database of all vintages.

More than 10 Allen-Bradley ControlLogix programmable automation controllers (PACs) perform the hybrid functionality required of sequential, process, and drives control. This includes overseeing Allen-Bradley PowerFlex variable-frequency drives that control screw feeders, crushers, pumps, and agitators, and enhanced PID control of temperature, sugar content, and yeast-cell monitoring.

ControlLogix also controls Moppa's advanced refrigeration plant, which regulates temperature at all stages of the process. Three ammonia compressors and a pumping system circulate liquid ammonia through the must chillers, rack-and-return tanks, and fermentation vessels. The control system works out the required load and chooses the lead compressor and its optimum settings, based on how much cooling is needed for the required fermentation rates.

A common protocol allows seamless flow of information through the plant. At the supervisory level, a site-wide EtherNet/IP network connects the SCADA server and clients with each other and the ControlLogix PACs. A ControlNet communications network provides high-speed peer-to-peer and input/output (I/O) communications, while device-level communications are provided by DeviceNet. Integrated Architecture supports the three networks.

Graue is proud that the greenfield Moppa plant is "green"—not only as a new facility, but also one with strategies in place to ensure environmentally friendly practices. The refrigeration system is highly efficient, with the option for off-peak loading to reduce electricity costs and power consumption through maximized compressor efficiency. Also, the hot return ammonia gas heats water used for washing tanks throughout the plant. And, Moppa has its own complete wastewater recycling plant.

The goal has been to achieve a continuous production flow through the plant. Graue believes the automation used helps ensure this objective is met and maintained. "The SCADA [system] allows us to see trends in real time, and we can backtrack to specific batches as required," he says.

To facilitate field installation and commissioning, Camms constructed electrical switchboards and control cabinets in its workshop. The company also conducted comprehensive factory acceptance testing (FAT) and some precommissioning prior to shipping. This was made possible by what Camms project engineer Johan Snyman calls "collaborative development: We worked very closely with Yalumba and the suppliers of other technologies, such as the refrigeration plant, which we had to integrate into the control system," he says.

The system provides a common application development environment through the Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk data-sharing model. "We had one tag database available to both the SCADA and the PLC programmers," Snyman says. "Any tag created was immediately available to everybody. There was no importing, exporting, connecting, or waiting. From the beginning, we were able to program concurrently, with absolutely no time delay."

Graue says Yalumba has "standardized on Rockwell Automation technology to the point that we request it to be used for all OEM equipment, even if the OEMs usually use another brand."

Graue says the infrastructure is in place to fully automate the plant, should Yalumba so choose. For now, it is the juxtaposition of high-volume processing technology and winemaking art that is making Yalumba successful.