Consistently competitive

Krombacher is one of the largest beer breweries in Germany. Its slogan, which translates into "as unique as its taste" is also reflected in its technology. Production and logistic systems are constantly being expanded and modernised in order to keep pace with the expansion of the company. Krombacher‘s operational engineering department keeps an overview of efficient electrical planning, modification and documentation of existing and new plant data using the EPLAN Platform. Krombacher relies on EPLAN Krombacher’s brewery systems are divided into two production plants in the Krombach district of Kreuztal. The headquarter covers the production, while bottling and logistics are located on the other side of the state road. These production and bottling sites are linked by underground lines, so the technology and production-logistics are rather complex. "We have a high level of automation," explains Ulrich Stiebeling, head of the operational engineering department.
There are currently over 1000 controllers and enclosures installed across the whole company premises. Krombacher uses EPLAN Electric P8 for electrical design, plus EPLAN Fluid and EPLAN View for pneumatic design and visualisation. Convert or redraw? When devices are replaced, the plant needs to be extended or optimised and Ulrich Stiebeling‘s team is normally faced with the challenges of entering changes manually. Smaller plants are also planned and implemented completely in-house, with conversion of old plans from EPLAN 5.70 to P8 also done by hand. "When it comes to conversions or major plant and machine changes, we need to decide on a case-by-case basis: Convert or redraw? A newly drawn plan is always beneficial for the future," explains the head of operational engineering. Good documentation saves time and money Good documentation is a question of discipline: Schematics produced in EPLAN which can be viewed in PDF form have a familiar structure which makes work easier for service technicians if errors occur in the system. "They always find the faults – it is just a question of whether it takes a quarter of an hour or several hours," believes Ulrich Stiebeling. With clear, current EPLAN visualisations, the origin of faults is easy to find without expensive downtimes. Clear guidelines prevent illegible plans. This applies to the in house team and external specialist suppliers to which orders are issued for complex major systems, for example in the bottling plant. This is why Krombacher not only demands EPLAN Electric P8 based documentation from all plant suppliers, but also issues clear guide­lines for the use of the CAE system to Krombacher standards and provides training to ensure its proper use. The implementation of DIN EN 81346 makes clear guidelines indispensable. Clear guidelines – smooth processes "Our aim is group-oriented drawing, so all those involved in the plans can work efficiently with them," underlines Torsten Friedrich. The catalogue of guidelines containing all specifications was drawn up in conjunction with EPLAN. Anyone accepting an order from Krombacher is given sample documentation, master data and component libraries on storage media. The aim is to standardise the structure, terminology and documentation to enable structured archiving so that project data can be accessed more quickly and, last but not least, maintenance costs can be reduced. The Krombacher guidelines have proved particularly useful when it comes to handling error checking. Krombacher demands tested drawings from its suppliers, as "faulty plans are wasted money". Front runner in terms of consistency The next step is to move in the same direction for pneumatic design with the help of EPLAN Fluid. "Pneumatics need to be checked just as carefully as electronics," explains electronic engineer Udo Klappert, neglecting them can result in time-wasting and expensive periods of downtime. Consistent electronic and pneumatic design and documentation from a single source gives Krombacher operational engineering additional time and cost benefits in terms of development design and maintenance.