The Selection Process
A rigorous supplier selection process was carried out by Carlsberg with the key criteria being – technical ability, Siemens product knowledge, proven project management skills and cost effectiveness. Although Datastor and Carlsberg had never previously worked together Carlsberg were impressed by Datastor’s professional competence and their ability to meet the key criteria.
Strict Time Scales
A crucial requirement was to keep production downtime to a minimum. This was achieved by careful detailed planning utilising weekend shutdown periods to maximum effect. Each stage of the upgrade was carried out during these shutdown periods which meant that both existing S5’s and the new S7’s had to operate together in order to keep production disruption to a minimum.
Site Installation
Due to the short shutdown periods available to us for the conversion of the Siemens equipment it was decided that Datastor Systems sister company Acton Delta Limited would install the new Siemens S7 hardware in the existing panels by removing the existing Siemens S5 hardware and then mounting the new Siemens S7 hardware in its place and utilizing the existing field wiring, for this solution to work as planned Datastor produced new panel drawings to suit the new hardware and plant control. By using this solution Datastor were able to provide Carlsberg with a seamless conver-sion within the tight shutdown periods agreed.
Key Performance Indicator
Carlsberg UK stipulated that the Kegging machinery must perform at least as well as it did on the existing S5 control system. Although the Kegging line consists of several pieces of machinery from the De-Unitiser which de-palletizes the empty Kegs to the zones which controls the moving of the kegs to feed the Rackers which fill the kegs and then the filled kegs are moved out of the Rackers by the Zone 3 PLC which then feeds the Unitiser which palletizes the filled kegs. The filling of the Kegs is carried out by seven pairs of Rackers which each have a Siemens PLC, it was this stage in the conversion which Carlsberg UK saw as most critical and stated that this will be the point where the performance will be monitored.
Completion
The project was completed by the agreed completion date of the beginning of November 2009 and was seen by everybody involved as a great success and Datastor Systems Limited have now guaranteed the systems performance for the next 2 years until November 2011.
