Packaging
From clean design to condition monitoring
Thursday 01. May 2008 - Festo at the Interpack exhibition
From components through to pneumatic systems, Festo is a one-stop shop for a comprehensive range of automation products for food and splash zones. These specialist products meet the stringent legal requirements in this sector for ease of cleaning, corrosion resistance and compressed air quality. Clean design and hygienic design components ensure optimum food safety and now include diagnostic and condition monitoring systems.
With sensors and electrical units for valve terminals from Festo for component and system diagnostics, machine builders and system operators can concentrate on their core business. Festo was one of the first companies to collaborate with well-known manufacturers of aseptic filling systems to develop automation components, such as pneumatic cylinders and valve terminals, in so-called Clean Design for food and splash zones.
Festo offers tailored product packages for food, splash and non-food zones, just as it does for sub-sectors such as cheese presses, filling or sorting, and for specialist applications like blow moulding PET containers. For the packaging industry, too, the company can offer suitable products for rotating, pivoting, guiding and tensioning, even in the most confined spaces. Intelligent solutions reduce cycle times, increase output capacity and flexibility.
Reliable services
In addition to products designed specifically for individual industrial sectors, automation systems manufacturer Festo also offers a comprehensive service package, from total productive maintenance (TPM) to compressed air quality analysis. TPM support integrates maintenance with production, thus ensuring a high level of machine availability. Where there is direct contact with food, compressed air quality must meet high standards. Experts from Festo conduct inspections of compressed air preparation units as well as filters and dryers, measure the residual oil content and the pressure dew point and work out possible improvements.
Festo AG
is both a global player and an independent family-run business based in Esslingen. It supplies pneumatic and electric automation technology to 300,000 factory and process automation customers in over 200 sectors. Our products and services are available in 176 countries. With 12,000 employees in 56 companies worldwide, Festo achieved a turnover of 1.6 billion in 2007. Each year, 7.4 % of this amount is invested in research and development. As part of our focus on training, we set aside 1.5 % of turnover for training. However, training opportunities are not confined to employees. Festo Didactic GmbH brings customers, students and trainees into close contact with automation technology through industrial training programmes.
Global manufacturing network
Pneumatic and electric drives, valves and valve terminals, handling systems, service units for compressed air preparation, sensors, tubing and micro-system technology are produced at twelve manufacturing sites, each specialising in a particular product group, in Brazil, Bulgaria, China, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, India, Singapore, Switzerland, Ukraine and the USA. In line with the concept of “production on demand”, countless customer-specific manufacturing solutions are produced in Brazil, Germany, Singapore and the USA for their respective regional markets, i.e. South America, Europe, Asia and NAFTA.
System solutions in demand
The demand for system solutions, modular concepts, and diagnostic and condition monitoring is characteristic of the food industry. System stoppages caused by faults can result in high costs and can render entire batches of food and pharmaceutical products unusable. To increase productivity and competitiveness, system designers and operators need coordinated and integrated automated solutions. These include electrical as well as pneumatic parts in the control sequence, e.g. remote I/Os.
What interests Festo is the fact that many companies, such as breweries or drugs manufacturers, come under the banner of what are referred to as hybrid industries. Companies, in other words, that continuously brew beer or mix substances, and then fill or pack the finished liquid or paste material in a discrete production process, or further process them. This means that some useful synergies, perspectives and ways of opening up new customer segments are evolving. These companies benefit from the global experience of Festo in the automation of manufacturing processes.