The Tech That Keeps This Distillery Operating Smoothly — and Securely
A bourbon producer upgraded its facility to gain greater visualization and streamline operations. The team required deep visibility across all operations, which included grain receiving, mashing, fermentation, byproducts, and finished goods.
Edited by EE Staff
Cool Stuff
Jul 13, 2026
Food
Located in Bardstown, KY, Heaven Hill Distillery operates in an industry with a century-long legacy and fast-evolving digital expectations. The distillery worked with Opus Integration, a member of the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork™ and one of the region’s standalone system integrators. Opus Integration is careful to make sure that their process connects to the different needs of every stakeholder, while also maintaining machine safety to the manufacturing of spirits.
The company’s primary challenge was to build a data-driven and secure operation for the Greenfield site of the Heaven Hill Distillery. The expectation was to deliver a fully digital, data-intensive operation that was capable of mirroring every physical process with reliable digital insight. The team required deep visibility across all operations, which included grain receiving, mashing, fermentation, byproducts, and finished goods.
However, their existing Louisville facility relied on an older version of PlantPAx®, creating a gap between capabilities and future needs. They also prioritized information security, requesting a system architecture that would allow them to deploy Dragos monitoring and gain visibility into hardware status and network behavior. Above all, Heaven Hill needed a cohesive visualization layer that could streamline monitoring, reduce manual troubleshooting, and prepare the business for long-term digital transformation and AI-driven decision-making.
Opus Integration came on the scene with a deep expertise in process automation and plant modernization having previously worked with the distillery’s Louisville facility providing strategic guidance, engineering leadership, and hands-on implementation support. For the Greenfield site, Opus deployed PlantPAx® 5.1 for a modern, cohesive view of the entire facility. This solution was able to centralize plant visualization, allowing operators to monitor equipment, interlocks, and system behavior from any terminal in the distillery. Opus also helped the Heaven Hill team configure the network architecture to accommodate Dragos information security, giving the customer visibility into their connected assets and strengthening the facility’s cybersecurity posture.
PlantPAx® transformed how operators at Heaven Hill engaged with their production environment. With modern interlock objects, operators could instantly see what conditions were preventing equipment from running. This eliminated the need to wait for maintenance, dig through code, or place multiple calls for support. Troubleshooting time dropped dramatically, which improved responsiveness and kept production moving smoothly.
The PlantPAx system also allowed the team to analyze historical trends and compare past production runs, which supported anomaly detection and process optimization across operations. Notably, the digital infrastructure helped the distillery prepare for AI-driven manufacturing insights. Heaven Hill is already building roles centered on cognitive AI to interpret data harvested from PlantPAx®, a major step forward for an industry over 100 years old. The partnership between Heaven Hill, Opus Integration, and Rockwell Automation continues to deliver a foundation for continued digital transformation.
For information: