SÜDWEST Lacke

 

SÜDWEST Lacke + Farben, a company of the Sto Group, has been developing and producing lacquers and paints for a wide range of applications for almost 100 years.

The control of the semi-automated production facilities ha guaranteed the performance of the processes for many years, but there was the aim to bring it up to a modern level and thus made future-proof.

Our company was commissioned to renew the control system. Based on our aXPM – MES solution, the module aXBatch has been implemented for the flexible definition of the production process. Our DCS – Distributed Control System – runs the control and visualization of the plant. The consistency of our MES solution allows operation from the technology level to batch reporting on one platform.

The control concept has been developed together with the professional technical team from SÜDWEST Lacke + Farben. Special thanks go to Mr. Thilo Meinzer, Head of Technology at SÜDWEST, who has known the old control system down to the last detail and has supported us with his expertise all the time. In a factory acceptance test in Graz, the SÜDWEST technicians and production managers were able to test the system in simulation mode and suggest valuable changes.

The conversion work was carried out at the plant at the end of 2019. In contrast to other projects, in which a system changeover has to be carried out in a few hours, we had the “luxury” of a whole week, because the products were produced in advance and the implementation and handover could therefore be carried out without the usual hectic pace.