Heating & Refrigeration- Held on Thursday 23rd February 2023 at Briggs of Burton plc, Derby Street, Burton upon Trent
At the new Briggs Global Technical Centre, built in, the annual Joint IBD/BFBi Engineering Symposium was held, attracting over 25 attendees. (Apparently it was the first event to use these facilities according to Mr Robert Buxton, Managing Director of Briggs of Burton)
The idea of this joint venture (which is now in its tenth year) is not only to have topics covered in the syllabi of the various IBD exams involving engineering but also to give exposure of the latest developments and techniques available especially applicable to the brewing and distilling industries.
Chaired jointly by John Round on behalf of the IBD and Charlie Gorham on behalf of BFBi, the four presenters on the day were :-
Mr Nick Jones, Senior Project Manager from Lorien Engineering Solutions talking about Project Life Cycle and a Structured Approach to Projects with respect to a refrigeration project
Secondly, Mr David O’Brien from Star Technical Solutions gave a presentation which linked the fundamentals of refrigeration processes to the application of new as well as existing refrigerants.
The third presenter was Mr Andrew  Mieleniewski, Head of Technical Sales at Briggs of Burton plc covered the current opportunities available for the installation of heat pumps in both breweries and distilleries
The final presentation given by Mr Adam Kellett of Briggs of Burton covered the theory and practice of heat transfer in breweries with some worked examples to help potential exam candidates understand the mysteries of heat transfer
Everyone appeared to have gleaned something useful from the day’s events
A visit to the shop floor facilities at Briggs of Burton demonstrated their evolution from building large fermentation vessels to a smaller, more concentrated footprint, developing process systems for brewing, distilling and pharmaceutical industries. All teams within Briggs are interchangeable with Briggs providing a one stop shop format across automation, software, electrical and mechanical engineering.  Briggs’ partnership with Holvrieka, Haffmanns and DME enables Briggs to leverage their relationships and deliver a full range of equipment and services.
Some of the items seen in production, manufactured on skids in a plug and play format, included Thermal Vapour Recompression units destined for a distillery in Mexico about which details had been explained in Andrew Mieleniewski’s earlier presentation.
Briggs laid on a superb buffet post tour and the evening concluded with several attendees joining the organisers at the famous ‘Coopers Tavern’ in Cross Street, Burton upon Trent
Hearty thanks must be given to Briggs of Burton plc for their hospitality and generosity for hosting and providing such excellent refreshments especially Mr Robert Buxton, Managing Director, Dr Simon Davies, Marketing Director and Lynda Wheat who coordinated the day’s events
Not forgetting the four presenters who clearly had spent a lot of time crafting their presentation to fit the needs of the symposium.
