James Boag & Son Brewery Expansion, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia

James Boag & Son of Launceston, Tasmania, is the fourth largest brewer in Australia. The company is a subsidiary of the large Philippine food and drink conglomerate San Miguel, following a friendly acquisition in 2000. Since then the Boag brands have been developed and this has resulted in increased popularity and sales.

A new expansion program for the brewery is planned over the next three years to further develop Boag beers as international brands. The three-year investment program will cost over AU$55 million and the first phase has already been completed.

The first phase of the expansion involved an extensive upgrade of the bottling and packaging processes at the brewery. This required an investment of AU$18 million and was completed in November 2004. The brewery employs 142 people and produces over 30 million litres of beer per annum. In 2004-05 the Boag Brewery is being expanded to occupy the complete block enclosed by William, Tamar and Shield Streets and The Esplanade in Launceston.

CONTRACTORS AND CONSTRUCTION

JL Lennard Engineering was awarded the contract to supply and install a Krones high-speed bottling line at the Launceston brewery and was responsible for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and project management (JL Lennard is the official distributor of Krones equipment in Australia).

This is the first Krones turnkey beer packaging line in Australia, and it is capable of filling 800 375ml bottles per minute to double the brewery's previous bottling capacity. The line will initially be dedicated to package James Boag's Premium, which is Australia's second largest selling premium beer brand.

JL Lennard Engineering was able to custom produce all the bottle and carton conveyors for the installation at its Mansfield, Brisbane engineering workshop.

The Krones turnkey line in Launceston consists of a Pressant universal depalletiser, a Mecafill VKPV 87-valve rinser / filler / crowner bloc, a Krones / Sander Hansen pasteuriser, a Topmatic labelling machine with an automatic bulk glue system, a Variopac high-speed shrink wrapper, and three 2A linear robotic palletisers with automatic pallet infeed plus Syskron LDS line data software control.

The actual installation of the bottling line and the commissioning process was managed by JL Lennard's project engineers. The electrical and mechanical installation was carried out by a team of Krones contract engineers. Commissioning, operation training and maintenance courses were carried out by Krones commissioning engineers from Germany.

EQUIPMENT SPECIFICS

The Mecafill VKPV filling system is an electro-pneumatic system that allows fast independent adjustable filling steps. The program steps can be programmed and saved in a central control unit and can be recalled and set into operation at any time. This innovation allows fast change-over times for different bottle sizes and products.

The wrap-around case packer installed at the end of the bottling line is an Italian machine from SMI Pacifica, the third SMI machine at the brewery. The SMI machine, the WP-800, is the fastest model currently available and is capable of filling 80 cartons per minute. The machine runs so fast that it has to be fitted with a high-capacity OEMasterfill glue module that continually delivers small doses to the glue applicator. The WP-800 case packer also features an extended carton magazine that increases storage volume, making it easier for the line operator to maintain board supply using preformed cartons.

Krones are supplying their Checkmat fill height, missing-crown and missing-label detectors while the labellers are to feature Videojet inkjet coders, from Tronics.

GLASS PRODUCTION PLANTS

San Miguel is keen to support their Australian subsidiary and so in addition to the plant expansion, which will incorporate improvements in process and packaging, they will also construct two new glass plants in Australia at a cost of AU$140 million.

To be built through San Miguel Packaging Products (SMPP), the planned 250t glass plants will be constructed in Brisbane and Sydney. They will service the glass requirements of James Boag & Son and Lion Nathan Ltd (Lion Nathan is owned 40% by Kirin of Japan, which in turn owns 15% of San Miguel).

BEER PRODUCTION

Sales of Boag beers have doubled since 1998 and annual production at the Launceston brewery has risen from 18 million litres to 31 million litres in the past three years. 60% of the brewery production is currently exported to mainland Australia and this is expected to increase to between 75% to 80% within three years following the expansion investments. Boag beers have also made an impression in world markets and will be promoted there as well.

Click here for printable version