"Our systems can map all customer processes"

Mr Baumeister, as Head of the Palletising and Packaging Systems Division at BEUMER Group you manage and coordinate the global competence centre in this field. What are your goals? Baumeister: With the management of the Palletising and Packaging Systems Division, I have taken on a highly exciting and varied task. Together with my team, I am responsible among other things for developing and expanding the comprehensive solutions portfolio. My goal is very simple: I want to continuously promote the worldwide growth of this business sector. To achieve this, we must establish ourselves in a regionally balanced manner that helps us support our customers throughout the world in the best possible way. We focus on industries with the potential for growth and sectors in which we are fully established as for example the chemical industry. We will continue to offer attractive intelligent solutions to our customers. Mr Freise, you are part of the "Chemical team" within BEUMER Group. What are the tasks performed by you and your colleagues? Freise: We take care of customers who are looking for packaging solutions in the chemical and petrochemical industry. With our team we combine specific industry knowledge with the knowledge of the available technologies. This may concern simple products or entire packaging lines. The requirements of the chemical sector, and especially in the petrochemical industry, are very specific. The design of our machines and systems can always be customised to meet the specific requirements of different industries - and especially of this sector. Of course we continue to develop our portfolio further. We also provide special solutions for particularly demanding tasks. Could you explain in more detail the specific requirements related to the chemical industry? What is to be considered when handling this kind of product? Freise: Chemical and petrochemical products are characterised by very different temperatures and special flow behaviour - completely different from cement, mortar or gypsum, which differ by their bulk density or grain size. The one thing they all have in common: they have to reach distributors and customers in perfect condition. They have to be filled, palletised and packaged carefully, yet quickly. How do you meet these requirements? What do you do to provide your customers with the right systems? Baumeister: We offer an extensive and modular range of products. Our group of companies has all of the necessary expertise to provide customised solutions even for highly complex material flow systems. Our systems are able to map all of our customers' processes for warehousing and moving raw, auxiliary and operating materials as well as semi-finished and finished products within a defined business division. This can be bulk material or piece goods filled in regular or big bags, cartons, barrels or buckets that are transported individually or on pallets. We deliver everything from one source enabling the customer to reduce vendor interactions and to have a single point of contact. What can your customers expect? How can they for example fill the chemical products efficiently? Freise: When BEUMER Group installs packaging lines for a customer in the chemical industry, the process may resemble this: bulk materials are transported from the silo to the form fill seal system BEUMER fillpac FFS. This filling machine forms a ready-made PE tubular film into a bag and fills it with the customer's engineered plastics like PE, PP, PA or PS granules. The BEUMER fillpac FSS is equipped with an electronic calibration-capable weighing unit which then weighs the bags before the filling process. It ensures that the bags are always filled with a constant quantity of material within specified tolerances. Afterwards the bags are sealed. This way it is possible to handle up to 2,600 25-kilogram bags per hour in the high-capacity range. Our product range also includes systems for lower throughputs. Once the material has been filled into bags, they must be transported. What options are offered to your customers? Freise: The filled bags, which may differ in size and weight, are stacked on pallets in a stable and precise way. For this, BEUMER Group offers the BEUMER paletpac. The high-level palletiser is modularly designed and can therefore be quickly assembled. It is easily accessible for maintenance, can be operated intuitively and adapts to different packing patterns. Often the companies belonging to this sector have to position the filled bags carefully, yet quickly and with precision. This is the reason why the BEUMER paletpac is equipped with a clamp-type or twin-belt turning device. For items that are not filled into bags, but need to be packaged in cardboard boxes or canisters, we offer our customers the BEUMER robotpac. It is a space-saving articulated robot which solves complex palletising and de-palletising challenges reliably. We offer a suitable gripping system for each packaged product. Depending on the requirements, the palletised products may be required to stand securely on the loading space during transport, or be protected against dust, rain or other atmospheric influences for outdoor storage and during transshipment. This is why we have developed the high-capacity packaging system BEUMER stretch hood. It covers the products with a highly elastic stretch hood. How do you achieve a simple and intuitive operation? Baumeister: We provide all systems of the packaging line with the same Human Machine Interface (HMI). This operator panel provides users with an easily understandable and intuitive interaction concept, enabling them to define safe working sequences. What happens at the end of these packaging lines? Baumeister: With our system solutions, the full pallets or individual bags can be forwarded to a connected warehouse or directly to the loading space of a truck. The system components are mainly transport technologies such as conveyors or vehicle-based systems. We always use components from our modular system. This makes the solutions flexible and expandable and they can be adjusted to changing customer requirements, such as modifications or additions to the product and packaging portfolio. How does BEUMER Group ensure continuous material and data tracing? Freise: We make the filling, palletising and packaging systems as well as any additional system components compatible with each other. For this, BEUMER Group has developed the modular BG Software Suite as superordinate system. It can be adapted individually to particular tasks. Systems from other companies can be easily integrated. Customers can extend this solution at any time and improve their material flows. The cross-program user interface BG Fusion shows process data and reports. All available data can be accessed – without operators having to switch between different applications. Do you also design entire concepts for material flows? Baumeister: Of course. Depending on the complexity of the task, some applications can only be implemented on the PLC level. Others, in turn, require high-level material flow computers or warehouse control systems. BEUMER Group ensures communication between the different control levels for the user. This means we can create an intelligent connection between the individual systems, and integrate them into existing process and inventory control systems. And because we provide everything from one single source we can avoid potential errors that may come along with vendor interactions. Due to our vast experience in automation and control technology we are able to realize and install complex intralogistics tasks as one system provider. What is your latest development in the field of packaging systems? Baumeister: We have developed the BEUMER Overall Operation Monitoring App, which enables both users and management to get an overview of data regarding the complete packaging line or of individual systems on their smartphones or tablets. The app shows the status of availability, performance and quality levels as well as the energy and compressed-air consumption. This ensures trouble-free operation of all systems. Customers can adapt the program to their specific requirements.