The Indian brewing industry rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the global pandemic.

As per the Expert Market Research report, the Indian Beer market is expected to rise from INR 371 Billion in 2020 to INR 662 Billion by 2026 with a CAGR of 9.2% during 2021-26.

Although the industry growth looks impeccable in figures, the biggest challenge for the brewing industry is to upgrade their manufacturing from manual monitoring to the power of the internet of things (IoT).

It is time for IoB (Internet of Beer)

IoT is a network of physical objects connected to the internet that collect and share data. It monitors data from the surroundings and transfers the data from one device to another without human intervention. IoT has eliminated manual activities in the manufacturing domain, and the brewing industry is no exception.

Five ways GENESIS (IoT) can reinvent the brewing operation management

1. Waste Reduction Production equipment and fermentation tanks, once embedded with flow meters and sensors, allows brewers to collect huge amounts of data on pressure, temperature, pH balance, carbonation and fill time. This can help pinpoint the specific causes of overflow and excessive foaming during brewing and bottling.

2. Capital Equipment Utilization Real time data collected from the innumerable fermentation and resting / maturation tanks informs the brewer about the stage and quality of production. Samples can be drawn, tested and released by Quality Control after taking inputs from these data. Thus, sampling will not be a time dependent operation but based on the condition of a batch. Timely release of batches frees up the expensive capital assets which can be better used for production.

3. Health and Safety A Brewery is filled with innumerable large pressurized vessels depending upon the plan capacity. Fermentation is a process by which yeast converts the glucose in the “wort” to Ethyle Alcohol and Carbon Dioxide – giving the beer both its alcohol content and its carbonation. Since fermentation is an exothermic process, close control on the temperature (cooling in stages) as well as ensuring that pressure stays within parameters is critical for safety of personnel. IoT sensors embedded in every Still, Kettle and brewing pump can help managers monitor any performance issues that could lead to serious incidents.

4. Harnessing the power of Machine Learning from data Over a period, data collected from the different processes can be harnessed to know more about how each input parameter (barley malt from different sources & of different quality, the yeast used, the process parameters, etc.) affects the end product. These can be used to improve the process for quality as well as improve the cycle time (with affecting quality).

5. Energy Efficiency Brewing is a high energy guzzling process. It has its share of Boilers for steam generation, process cooling refrigeration systems, pumps and motors apart from plant HVAC and lighting utilities. Studies have revealed that it takes 0.43 kWh in large breweries, and the number is much higher in smaller and micro-breweries (around 0.65 kWh / litre). It varies between 3 to 8% of the production cost of beer.

For a plant of 30 Lakh litre capacity (i.e., 3,000 kl / annum), this works out to be 1.4 Mn kWh of energy. Considering a conservative estimation of INR 7 / kWh, this would amount to a whopping INR 1 Cr ( INR 10 Mn) energy bill annually. Monitoring and controlling the energy usage throughout the plant is essential to keep the cost of production of beer manageable. Modern breweries are using IoT devices and sensors to keep an eye on different energy guzzling processes and areas within plant to keep energy consumption in check.

GENESIS, a platform by phAIdelta, is a cloud based system which helps you collect data from multiple points (IoT, Sensors, etc) and sends out actionable inputs after analysing them; harnessing the power of Big Data Analytics, AI and Machine Learning

The GENESIS IoT platform gives the complete flexibility to monitor and manage the metrics at the level of detail you need. It takes less than 5 seconds to spot an issue with colour-based indicators. It also distinguishes the different issues on a dashboard for quick attention.

With GENESIS, a highly configurable cloud-based system that can be scaled as per your operations and keeps the ability to summarize information to precisely point out where the exceptions are! Alert workflow helps to track the auto-update status of an issue.

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