Carlsberg, which employs more than 40,000 people across the globe, has tapped into Farnborough-based PTC^®’s Digital Manufacturing Solution Suite to boost the performance of 28 of its breweries in Europe and Asia.

Built on Microsoft Azure, the suite is comprised of the award-winning ThingWorx® Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) Platform to accelerate time-to-value and enable the long-term exchange and maximising of information.

To ensure transparency across its worldwide operations, Carlsberg needed a way to track and document the transformation of raw materials into finished goods.

The brewer recognised that PTC’s experts and technology could help it monitor critical packaging assets and track overall equipment effectiveness and performance, ensuring greater product and production consistency.

“Brewing for a better day today and tomorrow is the essence of what we strive to do at Carlsberg,” said Marco Farina, global Operational Technology manager, Carlsberg.

“This focus has driven our dramatic expansion over the last ten years, which, in turn, has increased the need to expand production and packaging capabilities across all our breweries.

Digitisation is driving change in the industry and has given us the opportunity to look at different channels of approach for improvement. By integrating ThingWorx with our existing production assets, we have enhanced connectivity across our breweries and can now provide more detailed analytics of the packaging cycle.

PTC’s Digital Manufacturing Solution Suite, which is purpose-built for industrial environments, delivers the functionality, flexibility and agility needed to rapidly deploy IoT use cases.

The application – built using PTC technology – allowed accelerated implementation and Carlsberg was able to complete the deployment across 28 breweries within 28 months. Moreover, because the deployment was on Microsoft Azure, the solution has been scaled securely as well as rapidly.

“Production managers, both in the 28 breweries and those at headquarters, will now be able to analyse our operations in real-time, onsite and remotely,” continued Farina.

Carlsberg intends to build an end-to-end digital value chain that will impact everything from forecasting to procurement, to brewing, packaging, and logistics, all to better serve our customers.

Dave Grammer, General Manager for UKI at PTC, concluded: “With PTC and Microsoft Azure, Carlsberg will be able to rapidly develop and deploy tailored, scalable and secure applications that can monitor, manage and control packaging assets.”

“We look forward to continuing to support this famous brand on its digital transformation journey.”