In contrast to new acquisitions, retrofits can be an economical way to increase productivity and compliance with safety guidelines, ensure spare part availability, and lay the groundwork for Industry 4.0 solutions. They prevent unnecessary downtime and safeguard our customers’ plants and machines.
Retrofit with digitalization
For retrofits, we offer modernization through digitalization so that our customers can interconnect their machines in production and link them to the higher-level ERP system. This lays the foundation for advanced condition monitoring, for example, which in turn enables predictive maintenance.
With our digital retrofit solutions, we offer the opportunity to connect machines and plants to higher-level IT systems in order to make the process more transparent and productive. We developed Industry 4.0 Upgrade Kits with a variety of microservices for this very purpose. With our expertise in offering comprehensive services from analysis to design and implementation, we’ve reduced our customers’ engineering interface to a single contact.
Retrofits in practice
Optimization of a rod drawing plant from the 1970s
For the German subsidiary of a global market leader in copper pipes, copper alloy pipes, and brass semi-finished products, we optimized a rod drawing plant for producing brass semi-finished products from the 1970s for production operations. We did this by replacing the technology in the control cabinet – some of which had been discontinued for years – and the proprietary controller’s components that were no longer available. Colleagues at HEITEC’s Berlin office initially relied on scanned PDF circuit diagrams.
The challenge was to achieve an in-depth understanding of the plant, which was partially controlled by electronic boards, and upgrade it to a new PLC program. Service technicians from the Berlin office were also tasked with reconstructing the 40-year-old wiring diagrams and the changes to the plant’s wiring and generating an overview for the conversion and commissioning.
To implement this project, HEITEC Berlin was able to draw on the outstanding expertise of the HEITEC Group. Colleagues from Erlangen provided engineering support, and experts from HEITEC Auerbach were consulted on control cabinet construction. The project was implemented expertly and on schedule, thanks to the software development, assembly, and commissioning expertise from Berlin. With this retrofit, HEITEC provided more evidence of its ongoing, cross-location expertise in complex projects and guaranteed the customer high machine availability.
Safety retrofit of a clean-water pump with controller modernization
While refurbishing its conveyor system, a regional water company modernized an existing clean-water pump along with the necessary auxiliary equipment. In addition to the assembly comprising a pump and drive motor, the clean water pump included a medium-voltage switchgear panel, a medium-voltage soft starter, pressure equipment with an electric drive, and low-voltage electrical distribution and MSR equipment. The clean-water pump is controlled, monitored, connected to the higher-level control system and visualized via a programmable logic controller (PLC).
Our retrofit experts in Erlangen designed the new hardware for the project in consultation with the client. These preparations were the basis for hardware engineering and the design and production of the new control panel. This also included the reconfiguration and optimization of the software. The new sequences were implemented, the fault monitoring system was expanded, and a connection was established to the central server and the control system.
The user interface was also integrated into the central control system and redesigned to provide optimal, user-friendly functionality. The modernization of the controller based on the highest safety standards ensured the availability of spare parts for this highly sensitive system for providing potable water. A service contract also guarantees our customers the ongoing and comprehensive support of our technicians.
Retrofits with digitalization in practice
Our Industry 4.0 Upgrade Kits consist of a flexibly usable plug & operate tool that, thanks to flexible retrofitting, is used for data acquisition and monitoring machine processes and returns fast results. The connection between sensors and users was created via a gateway and HEITEC’s “Top Monitor” application on the basis of the Siemens cloud solution MindSphere.
Increased productivity and quality thanks to monitoring of process limits
Among other things, Buchner GmbH & Co. KG specializes in the manufacture of complex plastic trays using the thermoforming process and is active in many areas of metalworking. Due to the temperature sensitivity of the material, the goal was to detect anomalies in a system’s movement and monitor temperatures digitally.
With the help of one of our Industry 4.0 Upgrade Kits and the “Monitor My Conditions” microservice, temperature data could be monitored within specific process limits and movement data read out and recorded. The data was transferred to the cloud where it could undergo detailed analysis. We were then able to derive further steps for production.
“The Industry 4.0 Upgrade Kit from HEITEC now allows us to monitor specific process variables and focus our preventive maintenance before an unplanned production outage occurs. This improves our process reliability and reduces maintenance costs by uncovering small problems before they become big ones.” (Nico Buchner, CEO Buchner GmbH)
Process validation, recording reasons for disruption, and plant availability
Edler GmbH offers a wide and varied range of services. In the automotive field, it specializes in glass finishing, packaging, logistics, and quality control. As a technology partner, our job was to make the relevant process parameters transparent in order to safeguard processes and enable availability and the recording of reasons for disruption in a packaging plant without interfering with existing structures and systems.
Once again, we installed two Industry 4.0 Upgrade Kits as our basis for implementation. The “Monitor My Condition” microservice was used to make the relevant process validation parameters visible and generated the desired transparency in a very short time. The plant’s availability was monitored and disruption reasons were recorded with the aid of the “Monitor My Availability” and “Monitor My Disruption Reasons” microservices.
“HEITEC Industry 4.0 Upgrade Kits allowed us to quickly and easily monitor relevant process and production data, which we then used to increase transparency and ultimately productivity in our production facilities.” (Jörg Edler, CEO Edler GmbH)
Back
