Gray AES Helps Castle & Key Implement Ignition System With Visualization, History & Alarming
When Castle & Key took ownership of the long-idled Old Taylor Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky, and revitalized it as a modern facility, they opted to leave some of the 140-year-old buildings’ wear as is. The property, which features an honest-to-goodness castle, a sunken garden, and the world’s longest rickhouse, had languished in disrepair. Prior to the sale in 2014, there was even talk of deconstructing the castle itself and selling the limestone bricks. Leaving the patinaed brass and occasional cracked tile is an aesthetic choice, one that nods to the site’s history as the birthplace of bourbon hospitality in the 1890s. But step inside, under the original Old Taylor sign, and it’s clear that Castle & Key is equal parts tradition and innovation.
Castle & Key implemented Ignition — an industrial automation platform for SCADA, HMI, IIoT, and more — with the help of Gray AES to replace an outdated FactoryTalk system. Headquartered in nearby Lexington, Gray AES is a professional services company offering architecture, engineering, and automation solutions across a wide range of industries, including major greenfield or brownfield expansions. “Supporting distilled spirits producers and bourbon distillers, being headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky, is very important for us, not just as a systems integrator, but as a corporate citizen of our home state,” said Taylor Sawyer, Director of Business Development at Gray AES.
The two companies have a long history together; before the Ignition implementation, Gray AES had redone Castle & Key’s control cabinet, running new terminals and updating the PLC programming. After that success, Gray AES was the clear choice to upgrade Castle & Key’s SCADA system. As Elliott Schmitz, Distillery Manager at Castle & Key, put it, “Our goals were aligned from the get-go.”
Improving Operational Efficiency
The biggest issue with the old system was the lack of historical data. While Castle & Key could see current production numbers, there was little context. For a company with multiple products that require years to properly mature, this inability to look back made looking forward increasingly difficult. “Distilleries are in a unique position. They have to make decisions on a five-to-ten-year spectrum. They can’t make a product today and sell it tomorrow,” said Sawyer.
There is a limit to throughput as well; spirits like bourbon require physical space to age. To remain competitive in the market, Castle & Key needed to use the space they already had to its full potential.
Speaking about operational efficiency, Sawyer said, “It’s not so much a buzzword or a euphemism within the industry. It’s just the nature of where the industry is heading. How do you do what you’re doing today, albeit more efficiently?” This is especially true for a registered historic site that doubles as a production floor.
“We are a historic distillery, but the things we like to modernize aren’t necessarily traditional whiskey practices. It’s more [about] improved automation techniques, better data and analytics, correlation and connectivity, and then just constantly being neurotic about scientific advancement of our craft,” said Castle and Key’s Brett Connors, whose formal job title is Whiskey Wizard, a position that encompasses the duties of head blender, product strategy, hospitality, and sales support.
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