International brewer makes downtime a thing of the past, prepares for the future

Located in Milton, Delaware, USA, the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery facility is responsible for the craft beer and spirits of the brand. Having opened its doors in 1995, the rapidly growing brewing company now produces 262,000 barrels of beer annually.

Downtime is a costly expense no matter the process, but when it comes to producing a beverage that is distributed across almost all 50 US states, unexpected downtime can have a major impact.

Dogfish Head’s hop dosing process was traditionally a manual one, but as output continued to grow this was all moved to a single automation system. When that system became obsolete, Dogfish Head faced sizeable issues as cybersecurity risks were increasing along with potential downtime – in the form of a minor failure or a complete facility shutdown.

Action needed to be taken, and quickly! Finding a solution for such a fast-growing brewery proved a challenge; not only did the system need to be tailored to Dogfish Head’s day-to-day operations, but also allow room to continuously improve the process and the facility itself.

Find out how the international brewer finally addressed these challenges.