Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. is one of America’s leading craft breweries, owned and operated by the same family since the 1980s. Driven by curiosity and inspired by innovation, it’s a company that’s always been ahead of the curve. Now, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. is leading the way in sustainable manufacturing, showing the world how to brew greener beers in partnership with Johnson Controls and our smart building development.

From their adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies to how the partnership has influenced future decisions for the brewery, dive into the world of sustainable manufacturing in this blog.
  

Sierra Nevada Brewery’s Sustainable Manufacturing Values

At the dawn of the 1980s, Ken Grossman began building his own brewery under the glaring sun of the Californian desert. Using scraps of tanks and pipes found at salvage yards, he built from the ground up until, in November of the first year of a new decade, he took a sip of the very first Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. beer.

Since that first head settled, the family-run business has championed innovation in all its forms, including sustainability and smart buildings. Now, they implement a wide range of eco-friendly practices and sustainable manufacturing processes, including regenerative farming and on-site renewables.

When they approached the team at Johnson Controls for their next stage of sustainable manufacturing development, we knew it would be an exciting project based on shared values and our state of the art solutions, aligned with Industry 4.0 technologies, would hold the answers.
 

Implementing Industry 4.0 Technologies

At Johnson Controls, we finance and design the Industry 4.0 technologies that power solutions that deliver energy savings and optimise performance.

When Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. sat down with our team, they spoke about sustainable manufacturing and the need to create a more efficient, quieter central refrigeration system for their brewery in Chico, California, implementing the Industry 4.0 technologies we’re known for.

They also wanted to create a centralised system for their individual operating systems. This is a key focus of Industry 4.0, which stresses the importance of collaborative systems designed to work harmoniously for increased efficiency.
 

Johnson Controls x Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

The current refrigeration system at the brewery was old and excessively loud. Their overall set-up had evolved over the years, too, with new equipment added on top of old machinery, creating a disjointed refrigeration solution that operated on multiple isolated loops.

Their equipment was also under too much strain, and the team pinpointed frequent maintenance and potential breakdowns as a growing concern. They had to constantly monitor the system to reduce the risks of operational downtime, distracting them from other, more productive tasks.

On top of these issues, their refrigeration equipment had become so loud it was disrupting their brewery events and damaging customer experience.
  

Industry 4.0 Technologies: Refrigeration Solutions

To summarise, the problems we were dealing with were:

• A refrigeration system that was under too much strain
• Excessive noise
• The growing need for maintenance

To combat these key issues, Johnson Controls installed four 235-ton YORK® YMC2 magnetic centrifugal chillers. We estimated these to be 50% more efficient than their current equipment, helping them cut down on energy consumption from their renewable system and reduce the strain on their refrigeration systems. They’re also far quieter, keeping any noise disruption to a minimum for seamless events.

Industry 4.0 technologies are key drivers for energy efficiency. With only 11% of manufacturers in the UK currently monitoring their energy efficiency, this shows a clear area where businesses need to invest in order to reach net zero emissions. Energy efficiency can also bring sustainable manufacturing benefits including:

• Reduced energy bills
• Reduced business emissions
• More resilient systems

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. is largely self-reliant when it comes to its electricity supply thanks to renewables, which is already in line with Industry 4.0. This makes them less prone to energy price volatility, helping them continue operations even during times of geopolitical tensions and inflation.

Installing more energy-efficient equipment in a smart building also opens up the potential for the company to generate money from selling excess renewable energy back to the grid.
  

Industry 4.0 Technologies: Centralised Systems

The current systems Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. were using were largely disjointed.

To improve efficiency and optimise their business performance, we installed Johnson Controls Central Plant Optimisation™ 10 software, which is powered by Metasys® and delivers one, central system for the brewery. It’s also stored within an innovative energy-efficient chilled water plant, reducing costs and creating a more sustainable manufacturing system.

As we began working on the project, Sierra Nevada decided to create a central plant smart building, designed to collate their equipment and run their entire operations from a single location. This sort of smart building structure enables interconnected systems, remote management, and data analytics to work together, creating a new era of efficient and sustainable manufacturing.
  

Results of the Project

The project between Johnson Controls and Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. is a real-world example of Industry 4.0 technologies and smart building solutions in action. Once completed, their new systems introduced another layer of sustainable manufacturing to their eco-friendly operations along with enhanced controls through a collated system.

Some of the key benefits they experienced after implementing the changes include:

• A reduced natural gas consumption
• Lower energy consumption and reduced overheads
• Reduced maintenance and risk of downtime

An independent auditor recorded that the upgrade has saved them 1.2 million kWh in electricity per year. This symbolises huge savings in terms of running costs and a vastly lowered carbon footprint. They also qualified for a customised incentive run by Pacific Gas and Electric Company and earned energy rebates from local utility suppliers.

As the Sierra Nevada brewery’s Sustainability Manager said, “We are saving energy and staff time, increasing efficiencies, eliminating noise pollution, and reducing our impact on the local grid.”
 

Learn More About Industry 4.0

Johnson Controls’ Sustainable Infrastructure team partners with food and beverage manufacturers to assist them in cutting energy and operating costs, reducing downtime, meeting global regulatory compliance and improving processes by implementing proven solutions and systems, without upfront capital investment.

We are industry leaders in smart building solutions and sustainable manufacturing. We understand the importance of Industry 4.0 technologies for the future of businesses like Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and are committed to creating widespread change through financing, designing, and building smart buildings.

To learn more about sustainable manufacturing and the impact of Industry 4.0 on the UK food and beverage industry, download our whitepaper or contact our Sustainable Infrastructure team.