PLM developer PTC seems to be enjoying a flow of success right now. Following last week’s Volvo Group announcement that it will consolidate its entire CAD and PLM/cPDm operations on PTC's Creo and Windchill platforms, today’s top news is that the Danish Carlsberg Group has also invested heavily in PTC's IIoT software ThingWorx.

An interesting common denominator in these two deals is that they are both–albeit in slightly different ways–also about PTC's IIoT platform, ThingWorx. Although Volvo is investing in consolidating CAD and the PDM pieces on PTC's solutions, the company's CTO Håkan Stenqvist stated that an important aspect of the investment in PTC was that, “by using this foundation, we see great opportunities to connect PTC's IoT and AR solutions to our digital thread strategy.”

Over the last 28 months, the global beer producer has switched to using PTC's Digital Manufacturing Solution Suite at 28 of its breweries in Europe and Asia.

This solution is based on Microsoft Azure as the technical platform with PTC's Industrial IoT (IIoT) software ThingWorx as software platform.

“Digitization is driving the changes in the industry and has made it possible for us to look at different ways to improve and optimize. By integrating ThingWorx with our existing production assets, we now have better consistency in all our breweries and can provide more detailed analyses of, for example, the packaging cycle,” Marco Farina, global operational technology manager at Carlsberg, says in a comment.

Carlsberg Group is best known as one of the world's largest beer suppliers. The company has more than 40,000 employees globally and uses both Microsoft Azure and ThingWorx, which they claim, "accelerates time-to-value and ensures integrated information systems and optimal process control."

A Comprehensive Project. 28 Carlsberg facilities are involved, where Carlsberg was able to implement ThingWorx on the Microsoft Azure platform in only 28 months. Since the implementation took place with Microsoft Azure, the solution could also be scaled quickly. One result of the installation is that the production managers in the 28 breweries can centrally analyze operations in real time, both when they are in the brewery and remotely at a distance.

Traceability During the Entire Product Realization Process

In the press material surrounding today's announcement, Carlsberg notes that in order to ensure transparency in global production, it was necessary to be able to trace and document the conversion process from raw material to end product.

“Production managers at the 28 breweries and at the head office must be able to measure and analyze production in real time, both on site and outside. Carlsberg will establish a digital value chain from start to finish that includes and can influence everything from forecasts, purchasing, brewing process, packaging and logistics,” says Farina.

In pursuit of this, the brewery's assessment landed on PTC's expertise and technology as the platform that could ensure monitoring of important packaging processes, and track overall operational efficiency and performance to ensure that both the end product and the production process are consistent.

“We constantly strive to make tomorrow better, and this has led to a significant expansion of the company over the past ten years,” asserts Farina. "This growth has led us to expand both our production and packaging capacity in our many breweries.”

Better Consistency

In general, his conclusion is that digitalization is driving the changes in the industry and that state-of-the-art PLM and IoT technology have made it possible to improve and optimize in a way that has previously been almost impossible without comprehensive special solutions.

“By integrating ThingWorx with our existing production assets, we now have better consistency in all our breweries and can provide more detailed analyses of, for example, the packaging cycle,” Farina states.

"Enterprise Plant Benchmarking" is what PTC calls its strategy around the solution now implemented by Carlsberg. It centers around a set of measurable values that enable comparisons between facilities within the company. The key is to standardize the data entered at the central company level, so that the company can compare and respond to changing market needs faster and more smoothly.

Farina points out that PTC's Digital Manufacturing Solution Suite is specifically designed for industrial environments, and "provides the functionality and flexibility needed to quickly implement IoT-based operations."

Impressive Speed. The implementation of this extensive project involving 28 facilities only took 28 months.

28 Breweries in 28 Months

As noted above, the implementation of this extensive project with 28 facilities involved has been rapid. Carlsberg was able to complete the implementation at 28 breweries within 28 months. Since the implementation took place with Microsoft Azure, the solution could also be scaled quickly.

“The production managers in the 28 breweries and centrally can now analyze our operations in real time, both when they are in the brewery and at a distance,” says Farina.

"Carlsberg wants to build a digital value chain from start to finish that affects everything from forecasts to procurement, brewing, packaging and logistics, with one goal in mind: to serve our customers optimally," he adds.

From PTC's side, the head of Connected Operations Solutions, Howard Heppelmann, sums up that Carlsberg with PTC and Microsoft Azure can quickly "develop and distribute several customized, scalable and secure applications to monitor, manage and control production."

An Interesting Response to PTC’s Position in IDC’s MarketScape for IIoT 2021

Finally, today’s Carlsberg ThingWorx installation can be seen as an interesting response to industry analyst IDC, who ranked PTC third in the "leadership wave," after Siemens MindSphere and Microsoft's IoT solutions, in its latest MarketScape illustration of nine Industrial IoT (IIoT) solutions. However, the fact that all three and SAP IoT were positioned in close formation indicates that the differences between these players are very small.

One thing, however, is crystal clear: with its ThingWorx platform PTC has reached a market penetration that surpasses several of the competitors who are PLM and ERP players several times larger. A lot of this is connected with the company's proactive development work, where CEO Jim Heppelmann has since 2010 made the investments that today form the basis of PTC's ThingWorx offering.

If you want to know more about the IDC survey, my deep analysis of the matter can be found here: Siemens and Microsoft Overtake PTC in Analyst IDC’s Latest IIoT Ranking, But Are They Right?