German engineering

THE SMART SET

Germany is boosting its investment in natural gas and other energy supplies, while smart software solutions are adding value to manufacturing customers

Germany is boosting its investment in natural gas and other energy supplies with an announcement that a new floating LNG terminal is planned in order to increase the amount of product that can be imported going forward.

The new project involves converting of a number of liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers to act as floating LNG floating storage units as a means of reducing its dependence on Russian imports. It is estimated that each of the five mobile LNG floating terminals planned will be able to provide about 5bn cubic metres of gas per year, although some estimates put the figure as higher than this.

It is expected that the first two floating units will start operating this year with the other three to follow in 2023. “Together, the floating storage and regasification units alone can cover about one third of the current gas demand (base year 2021 – 90.5bn),” the energy ministry said in a press release.

The German government has also announced plans to transform the ports of Rostock and Lubmin in Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania state into energy ports, supporting the country’s energy security strategy.

The federal government presented a future package for the transformation of east German refinery sites and ports in September, including package measures to develop the energy ports in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as well as the maintenance of the refinery of the PCK Schwedt and the refinery Leuna in Saxony-Anhalt.

“Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is still willing to make its contribution to Germany’s energy supply” Manuela Schwesig, minister president of Macklenburg-Vorpommern, says. “In the current situation, this means that oil should be imported to Germany via Rostock and liquid natural gas via Lubmin. We are very grateful that the federal government has launched an additional investment program. It enables investments in our ports, upgrading the pipeline from Rostock to the refinery in Schwedt, as well as long-term investments in the hydrogen economy.”

“Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania will also benefit greatly from the future package,” Reinhard Meyer, minister for economic affairs, infrastructure, tourism and labour, says. “We have worked intensively on this at the federal level. The focus here is on transformation investments in the infrastructure, especially for the expansion of the Rostock seaport and the advancement of various energy projects to further support hydrogen projects. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania will make its contribution to securing Germany’s energy supply.”

Thanks to smart software and data analytics, we can map and connect the entire customer process across different system structures and vendors. It’s always about the big picture

bagging boost

Due to legal requirements, the Mexican cement manufacturer Cruz Azul has to change its production from 50 to 25kg bags in the future. In order to meet this logistical challenge, Cruz Azul has commissioned the German Beumer group to supply 14 highcapacity palletisers.

Cruz Azul must be able to bag, palletise and pack twice the quantity of cement bags in the future while maintaining the same production capacity. For example with a total tonnage of 150 tonnes per hour, 6,000 bags currently require more than 90 pallets. A pallet has to be handled every 40 seconds. One BEUMER system achieves an output of 5,500 to 6,000 bags per hour.

Covid-19 presented a particular challenge in this project. Due to the pandemic, it was not possible for Beumer experts to be on site with the customer in person. All concepts were discussed, debated and agreed online and with the support of the local group company in Mexico City.

The first five palletisers are expected to be delivered later this year. The other nine machines will follow by 2023.

Software solutions

Beumer is also investing in smart software solutions to the benefit of it’s customers. Bodo Schlenker, divisional director of software solutions at Beumer, recently spoke about the company’s activities in this area. “Our digital offerings strategically target the continuously increasing market requirements to be in a position to offer our customers substantial added value through smart software solutions.

“Data analytics are playing an increasingly important role to generate information in real time: ‘What does the process look like?’ ‘What is the system state?’ ‘What is the system utilisation level?’ The demand for software solutions in intralogistics is huge and will continue to increase in the years to come.” He continues: “When it comes to supporting our customers, software is a very clear differentiating factor. They don’t just want to buy a machine; they want a solution for their problem and it’s precisely this solution that we look to provide. What does that mean for us? We can connect and network the physical world with the digital world through smart software solutions, connectivity, and data analytics, and to ensure end-to-end material and data tracking. The closer we are to the customer process, the better we can support users.

“Data analytics can be understood as an offer to visualise information relating to their operating processes for customers on site via control stations, to be preventive or even predictive. This is where the human machine interface really comes into its own. The systems we supply to our customers are relevant to processes in customer production and need to be highly available. This means that the machines need to be able to ‘talk’ to their environment.

“Of course, given the wide variety of machines, this is a serious challenge and requires the machines to be ‘intelligent’. This is the only way to ensure that can data be generated, stored, and evaluated in a targeted manner.

“What this means for us is that it is important to shift more and more work to the network. After all, our machines do not always produce and work on their own as stand-alone solutions for our customers.

“Our machines are integrated or combined with other systems from OEM suppliers. It is always important to understand how the customer’s end-toend process works.

“Thanks to smart software and data analytics, we can map and connect the entire customer process across different system structures and vendors. It’s always about the big picture. Equipping new machines with the intelligence they need is quite simple. Systems that are already in use at customers need to be prepared for upgrades step by step.”