Bronco Wine Company: Weaving It All Together With Web Technology

Bronco Wine Company
Weaving it all together with Web Technology
Bronco Wine Company, Ceres, CA (the producer of "Two-buck Chuck") uses FactoryPMI for enterprise-wide process monitoring, control, and troubleshooting. It was a business decision to use this technology, and is paying off handsomely for the Franzia family-owned business.
Bronco Winery­­-Who are they? Meet Paul Franzia, Engineering Manager"Bronco Winery is passionate about producing its wines "We are growers, producers, blenders, bottlers, and export-with a consistent color, flavor, and 'mouth-feel'", says John ers of wine." This suggests that the complex processes and Franzia, a co-owner in the California-based Bronco Wine procedures of winemaking have to be right.Company. He is also a 60-something embracer of technol- "We are growing all the time," he says. ogy. He comments "Anytime, everywhere"-referring to his company's adoption of Inductive Automation's FactoryPMI He is responsible for the move to FactoryPMI. "We were Plant Management software solution to help his staff run using a SCADA product for environmental controls, and their wine business. interfacing it [HMI] with the PLCs that were doing the control," says Franzia. "Communication was sporadic, and The metrics are staggering. Their top brand-Charles Shaw- was frequently non-responsive," he mentions.sells for $2 in California, and is known as "2-Buck-Chuck". They produce and ship over 45 million liters or 12 million As the need to bring more information to more people grew, gallons of this brand annually. it was obvious that Bronco had a problem.Other wineries that use Bronco's services require rigorous testing and process validation since it is THEIR reputations on the line. Bronco, with facilities in Ceres, Escalon, Napa, and Sonoma can manage this and all sides of their business "They [Bronco's legacy because of the processes they have put into place. software provider] wanted "FactoryPMI is an integral part of our success," suggests Bob Stashak, winemaker at Bronco's Domaine Napa winery. "Our big dough to re-license each reputation is at stake." existing client, Factory PMI
doesn't use this model"
-Paul Franzia"They wanted big dough to re-license each existing client," Bronco chose FactoryPMI from Inductive lamented Franzia. "FactoryPMI doesn't use this model." It is esti- Automation. mated that Bronco saved over $300,000 on client licenses alone. FactoryPMI is a database-centric enterprise-class plant That wasn't the only battle that Bronco was fighting. Their en- management and SCADA software which is helping Bronco terprise plant management and SCADA solution needed to Winery streamline their business as well as helping them integrate with the databases from other enterprise software meet their production targets and the stringent compliance applications (IFS Maintenance Management Software and requirements of the wine industry. ProPak). It needed to provide scalability for over 150 clients in their 4 locations, plus remote access for troubleshooting. FactoryPMI uses a web browser to launch its client interface. Any computer that can connect to the network and run a browser is a FactoryPMI client. All the user needs is a login ID, and they can access the system to the level which their "Efficiencies have improved login group allows them to go.Administrators can add or delete users on the fly, in real-time-upwards of 30%, productivity and from anywhere! The security model inherent in the software al-lows for administrators to fine tune the projects, set user policies targets are hit every day." and tracks the activities at every FactoryPMI client.-Paul Franzia FactoryPMI uses an SQL database as its engine. Interacting and sharing information with different databases is one of the main design features behind FactoryPMI.Project costs were important. The selected software had to be efficient in deployment of clients and development of A full reporting tool for real-time and historical data was attrac-applications due to the geography. When a new project came tive to Bronco-especially the 'Click-to-Graph' component.on-stream, everyone needed to have it-automatically. And FactoryPMI is a solution for operations as well as the busi-when a new client was needed, or client access rights had to ness, connecting the enterprise from the plant floor to the be modified, it needed to be done quickly. A web-deployed back office. Based on standa... [download for more]