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Ms Maphrida Wehrli a management trainee in customer services moderated Bühler’s virtual world during the press conference and during the launch of Arrius on November 18, 2020 to the industry
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Mike Peters (above), managing director of Whitworth Brothers Ltd joins in the discussions
Dan Dye (below left), CEO of Ardent Mills and Technical director of milling, Scott Martin (below), explain how the Arrius integrated grinding and AI is impacting the flour milling process
Arrius: Bühler unveil a game-changer by Andrew Wilkinson, Milling and Grain
escribed as the first fully integrated grinding system (IGS), Bühler recently launched Arrius, a machine designed for the grinding of wheat, durum, rye, barley, corn and spelt. According to the company Arrius truly sets the benchmark in terms of grinding performance. On November 16, 2020, Milling and Grain Magazine joined an understandably excited selection of Bühler representatives and press for an invite-only international media briefing. Opened by the face-masked wearing and socially distanced duo of Burkhard Böndel and Roman Sonderegger, the audience were greeted with the sort of warm and jovial welcome that we have all grown to expect of Bühler over the years. Speaking first, Mr Böndel complimented his initial welcome address by recognising the “truly international if not global’ nature of the briefing, adding that the audience included “colleagues from the UK, from Bangladesh, the US, France, Italy, Turkey and Switzerland”. Mr Böndel, Head of Corporate Communication for Bühler Group, then heralded the arrival of Arrius as the beginning of “a new era of milling” with the launch of Bühler’s integrated grinding system, adding that the Arrius is a “completely new designed and developed system,” before handing over presentation duties to Roman Sonderegger, Head of Business Unit Wheat & Rye in Milling Solutions at Bühler Group.
The challenges of modern milling
The main reason, according to Roman Sonderegger, that the Arrius has been designed and developed the way it has is because producers in the milling and food industries are currently encountering an increasing number of challenges, with these issues requiring the innovative ideas and solutions that Bühler brings to its customers. Mr Sonderegger also stated that Bühler also sees digitalisation as a huge opportunity for both the company and their customers alike to use. Another factor that influenced the Arrius’ developement can be found in Bühler’s revolutionary new Mill E3 design. Introducing the Mill E3 project, Mr Sonderegger described the Mill E3 as 46 | December 2020 - Milling and Grain
“a new way that we want to build mills in the future and for that we need a holistic new feel on the grinding section and on the grinding equipment in particular, and that’s why Bühler came up with the Arrius.” With all of the components for Arrius designed specifically for this one machine, Mr Sonderegger added that Bühler wanted to use “entirely new elements and we wanted to make an innovative step-change and, yes, a lot of the elements are new and I’m looking forward to sharing those elements in more detail.” When asked what he meant by the challenges that millers face today, Mr Sonderegger replied by stating that although “there are a lot of challenges,” the one issue that he singled out for specific attention was that his customers are often struggling to “get the skilled team with the right skills to build around” and to operate the current varieties of traditional machinery effectively. The third and final key challenge discussed by Mr Sonderegger is flour quality. With the parameters of flour quality continually narrowing, whilst the quality of raw materials is also fluctuating, the two problems occurring at the same time appears to be providing a huge challenge to millers. As there is currently a lot of pressure on the market at the moment, it’s the miller who works the most efficiently that is going to be the most successful, said Mr Sonderegger. Concluding his response, Mr Sonderegger adding that, “Although these are elements that I would like to emphasise, food safety and sustainability are important topics and are becoming more important for the millers as well.” When asked by Mr Böndel whether he believed that the Arrius was the answer to all of these challenges, Mr Sonderegger responded by stating that he was “convinced that Arrius is the answer” to many of them. Following the friendly and informative welcome discussion and the short exchange between Messieurs Sonderegger and Böndel, the audience were then transported off onto a virtual magical mystery tour of floating platforms and giant machines all adhering to the famous white and green Bühler colour scheme of course! Our happy and very engaging guide for this flight of milling fancy was Maphrida Wehrli, Management Trainee, Customer Service at Bühler Group.