Bottling Made Easy at Yalumba

Yalumba, one of Australia's oldest family-owned wineries, faced mounting pressure to scale bottling capacity while preserving the product consistency its brand depends on. Aging bottling infrastructure struggled to keep pace with growing demand, and the facility operated a mix of legacy PLCs and newer equipment that could not communicate on a unified control platform. Without integrated line control, operators lacked real-time visibility across the bottling process, creating safety risks, compliance blind spots, and inefficient manual intervention. The inability to coordinate new and old equipment on the same line constrained throughput and left energy consumption unmanaged.

Yalumba partnered with Rockwell Automation to modernize its bottling infrastructure using the Allen-Bradley ControlLogix programmable automation controller as the primary line control system, chosen for its ability to bridge legacy PLCs with new equipment through a single, unified architecture. CompactLogix controllers were deployed to manage individual sub-systems — including fillers, de-palletisers, and air conditioning — providing granular, distributed control at the machine level. Operators gained site-wide visibility through FactoryTalk View SE SCADA software, surfaced on PanelView Plus HMIs positioned across the facility. This layered approach allowed Yalumba to integrate existing assets without a full rip-and-replace, reducing project risk while delivering a scalable, modern control backbone across both bottling lines.

The automation upgrade delivered measurable gains across capacity, energy, and workforce safety. Bottling line two saw a 50% increase in production capacity, directly attributable to the high-level integrated control eliminating manual bottlenecks. Energy efficiency also improved, with the new lines achieving a 10% reduction in power consumption compared to the prior configuration. Beyond the headline numbers, the automated system reduced dependence on manual labour for routine monitoring and intervention, lowering operational risk and improving safety outcomes on the floor. Collectively, the project demonstrated that legacy-inclusive modernisation can deliver both throughput and sustainability gains simultaneously.

• +50% production capacity on line two
• -10% power consumption across new bottling lines
• Reduced labour requirements and improved operator safety

• Integrating legacy PLCs into a new control architecture — rather than replacing them outright — can significantly reduce project cost and disruption while still achieving modern performance targets.
• A layered controller strategy (ControlLogix for line control, CompactLogix for machine-level sub-systems) allows precise control at each stage without over-engineering the overall architecture.
• Site-wide HMI visibility is a prerequisite for safety and compliance monitoring in high-volume bottling environments; operators cannot manage what they cannot see.
• Energy reduction is often an underrated outcome of automation projects — unified control enables load optimisation that fragmented systems cannot achieve.
• Food and beverage producers should plan integration architecture before selecting hardware to avoid lock-in when mixing new and legacy equipment.