Mega-brewery protects 700 workers with Eaton MNS

SARASOTA, Fla.—When MillerCoors sought a new integrated emergency communications solution for its 150-acre mega-brewery in Fort Worth, Texas, it went with Eaton.

Eaton's ALERiTY mass notification platform is being deployed in phases at the 1.2 million-square-foot facility, which employs 700 and produces 9 million barrels of beer a year.

“The customer was looking for ease of deployment to get messages out to everybody. We are the kind of solutions provider that offers real simplicity with a push of one button [from a facility manager in a central location,]” Ted Milburn, vice president of marketing for Eaton's Cooper Notification Business, told Security Systems News.

The WAVES wide-area MNS, part of Eaton's ALERiTY platform, was installed by Great Southwestern Fire & Safety, an Eaton channel partner based in Dallas.

Great Southwestern conducted a site analysis to gather data used in the phased approach for design and installation of both an exterior and interior solution.

The system includes high-fidelity speakers outside and, in the very loud industrial environment inside, an IP-based speaker and speaker strobe installation that will alert employees about extreme weather events, such as tornadoes, or, for example, about a hazardous spill on site, Milburn said.

Alerts also will go to employees' cell phones and soon to “giant outdoor voice speakers” to protect employees who may be in parking lots or in between the facility's multiple buildings, he said.

Upcoming are visual alerts, such as LED display signs.

“The facility is OK with deployment in phases. It's not uncommon for facilities like that to add [to the solutions] over a period of time. They'll add things as they go. What we provided was a platform they can add to at a later date,” he said.

That platform includes a software package that is integrated into the outdoor/indoor system and the infrastructure and connections to the hardware that Eaton provided, including the giant outdoor speakers and other speakers for the interior of the multiple buildings on the site.

The large project was nothing new for Eaton, Milburn said.

“We grew up in the military sector and have done this type of work in active war zones. We have moved our product into the commercial sector,” he said.

Eaton has worked with industries, including mining operations and petroleum refineries, military bases and college campuses, such as the University of Central Florida.

“This for us is a normal job,” he said of the MillerCoors installation.