Discover how how Australia’s oldest family-owned brewery uses automation, Opcenter Laboratory, information management system and real-time data to manage quality from raw materials to finished beer while improving productivity and decision-making.
Coopers Brewery has been making beer since 1862. Today, it runs one of Australia's most digitally advanced brewhouses – and the journey started over 20 years ago.
Quality isn't negotiable when you're brewing beer. Every batch needs to taste the same, whether it's the first of the year or the last. For Coopers – Australia's oldest family-owned brewery – that consistency depends on data. Based in Adelaide, Coopers built its brewhouse from the ground up with our automation technology.
Intelligent systems collect and optimize data at every stage of the manufacturing process, from incoming raw materials to finished product.
You don't have to be a large global organization to be transforming your business in a digital manner today. You can be any size of organization. If you're looking to speed to market, if you're looking for product efficiency, if you're looking to improve your productivity, then digital transformation with Siemens Software is one way to do that.
At the heart of Coopers' digital operations are two systems that work hand in hand:
Together, they help Coopers make sure that what's in the bottle is right – every time.
Coopers recently migrated from the legacy Simatic IT Unilab platform to Opcenter Laboratory, continuing a digitalization journey that's been running for more than a decade. A custom migration tool was developed to transfer all existing data sets seamlessly into the new system.
"The Opcenter Laboratory is a better, more efficient system – but very similar to what we had before," says Janie Zimmerman, Coopers quality manager . "That made the transition smooth for our team."
The new platform is 100% web-based. Operators can access real-time quality data from anywhere in the plant – on a desktop, a tablet or a phone. That means faster decisions on the floor, less time spent walking back to a terminal and fewer bottlenecks in the quality process.
What makes Coopers' story compelling isn't just the technology – it's the mindset. This is a family-owned business, not a global conglomerate, and they've committed fully to digital transformation.
"You don't have to be a large global organization to transform your business digitally," says Samantha Murray, who leads our industrial software business in Australia and New Zealand. "If you're looking for speed to market, product efficiency or improved productivity, digital transformation is one way to get there."
Digitalization doesn't stand still – and neither does Coopers. With a fully web-based platform now in place and real-time data flowing across the brewery, the question isn't what they've done but what comes next. Whether it's deeper integration across the supply chain, more advanced analytics or connecting operational data to Industrial AI capabilities, Coopers is in a strong position to keep pushing forward.
As Samantha Murray, Head of Siemens Digital Industries Software, Siemens Australia and New Zealand puts it: "It's about opening your mind to the future, not the past. Digitalization is going to be the key for the next generation – not just for Coopers, but for industry globally."
In this video, discover how Coopers and Siemens are working together to drive digital transformation across the brewery. From automation and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) to end-to-end traceability and real-time production insights, digital technologies help Coopers increase efficiency, enhance food safety, optimize energy use, and deliver a consistently high-quality product. Learn how combining advanced digital solutions with brewing expertise enables Coopers to meet changing customer demands while preparing for the future of sustainable manufacturing.