Automation of wine bottling – clear, preprogrammed structures

Automation for wine bottling: Constellation Europe, at its new greenfield facility in the English city of Bristol, featuring two Krones glass lines and three bag-in-box lines has opted for a harmonised control system. Krones supplied not only the filling technology for wine, but also the truck unloading station for both tank houses, accommodating 84 storage tanks and providing a total storage capacity of 4,620,000 litres. Automation of the entire wine processing technology is handled using a Botec F1 system. The Botec F1 control system uses a batch/order-focused approach to cover the complete production sequence, from wine acceptance and the tank farm all the way through to bottling and packaging, together with the CIP functions.
This open, flexible system has been precisely matched to the wine bottlers’ requirements at Constellation, ensuring a clear structure within the production processes involved. With its responsive handling of the batch processes used in the beverage industry, Botec F1 is a field-proven automation concept, one that assures high-performance production processes in the wine bottling operations at Constellation as well.
The LDS Line Documentation System additionally installed improves line efficiency and thus the output figures. The production and filling data stored in the system enable downtimes to be investigated and procedures improved. In addition, the documentation system means the bottler concerned is compliant with the statutory regulations requiring that every step in the production process be trackable.