Briggs of Burton successfully delivers a complex project while leveraging Octave’s design solutions
Briggs of Burton PLC is part of the Briggs Group, involved in brewing and distilling for the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, health and beauty markets. It provides process engineering solutions for the world’s leading companies. In the international brewing and distilling industry, Briggs enjoys an outstanding reputation with an engineering heritage that dates back more than 270 years. Briggs supplies total capability – from brewhouse to warehouse – by offering leading technologies in mash conversion, lautering, mash filtration and wort boiling.
Identifying goals
Briggs was contracted by the Diageo’s Cameronbridge grain distillery in Scotland to construct crucial parts in the complex Project Forth – an undertaking to increase the capacity from an already significant 65 million to 105 million litres of alcohol per annum.
Overcoming challenges
Building an extension to the existing whisky distillery and maintaining production on the COMAH site, while improving efficiency, working safely and reducing the carbon footprint, were some of the challenges that Briggs faced. Briggs delivered two of the four stages of Project Forth. Phase two included the design and construction of a new fermenting room containing 16 washbacks and two yeast optimizing vessels, a new Clean-in-Place (CIP) building to service the whole plant, a bulk chemical intake and a storage facility to service the CIP area, as well as an upgrade of a large existing fermenting room. In the next phase, Briggs had to design and build a new mash house for pre-distillation.
Octave’s Forte 3DWorx (formerly CADWorx Plant Professional) design suite has been used successfully on a number of previous projects at Briggs and therefore was chosen again for Project Forth.
Realizing results
The database created in Facets P&IDWorx (formerly CADWorx P&ID) was accessible for all disciplines on the project and purchasing schedules were produced hassle-free. Keith Poynton, Engineering Director at Briggs said “The accurate take-offs produced from the database resulted in cost savings from fixed prices with the supplier and we were able to maximise discounts by ordering in bulk and with fewer deliveries.”
Briggs’ team of project engineers used Forte 3DWorx to model the whole plant, including the vessels, the pipework and the steelwork.
Cross sections and accurate fabrication drawings were created from the steelwork and pipework models, allowing large pipe-bridge sections to be assembled complete with the pipework safely at ground floor level at site. “With space constraints and a river running through the site, completing this work at a high level would have been very challenging and difficult to achieve safely. The accuracy of the model and steel fabrication drawings ensured an efficient and safe process,” said Keith. Briggs achieved time savings of approximately 10%–15%.
The integration with Navisworks allowed the project to be reviewed by all parties involved – technical or not. Employees with previous CAD experience required just half a day’s training in order for them to work productively on the project. The customization capabilities of Octave’s Forte 3DWorx design software enabled Briggs to extensively tailor the database, symbols and pipe specifications.
Moving forward
Once again, Briggs has delivered outstanding quality, on time and within budget using Octave solutions. One of the biggest benefits from using Forte 3DWorx is the possibility to deliver a substantial amount of work upfront, minimizing cost overruns due to on-site design changes. Octave is proud to have been a partner with Briggs for many years and is looking forward to continuing this mutually beneficial relationship, helping Briggs to maintain a competitive edge in today and tomorrow’s market.
