Tetra Pak has signed a global purchase agreement for worldwide implementation of ABB’s System 800xA Extended Automation; future contracts may include instrumentation, motors, drives and low voltage products. Tetra Pak is a leader in providing preferred solutions for food processing and packaging to food manufacturers.
“Tetra Pak supplies dairy and beverages processes and carton packaging from factories all over the world,” says Lars-Eric Dentner, responsible for automation at Tetra Pak Processing Systems. “It is important for us to have a supplier with a complete product portfolio, who can also offer support on a global basis.”
Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands are the first countries to implement the purchase agreement. The cooperation between ABB and Tetra Pak will also include implementation in the rapidly growing markets in Asia, particularly in China.
“For System 800xA, we have developed an industry-specific solution for food manufacturing,” says Bertil Andersson, ABB Global Account Manager for Tetra Pak. “This solution has been very well received by customers as it offers efficient engineering with good testing possibilities, which minimizes the commissioning period.”
After the successful pilot installations of System 800xA in Denmark and the Netherlands, Tetra Pak received several new orders from their food manufacturing customers. The Newmarket Dairy in Ireland and Dairy Farmers of Britain’s (DFB) Llandyrnog creamery in North Wales have chosen to upgrade their existing automation systems to System 800xA. ABB’s incremental evolution approach will ensure that System 800xA functionality is delivered to these dairies with minimal disturbances to their production.
The Llandyrnog creamery will use System 800xA and a site-wide ERP system to improve productivity and utilization of internal and external resources; this project underscores DFB’s commitment to using the very latest technology to deliver the very best product to their farmers and consumers. Commissioning of both projects has already begun.
Within the same timeframe, Tetra Pak received two new orders for upgrades from customers in Taiwan.
In Sweden, food manufacturer Procordia Food in Kumla recently completed installation of System 800xA. The application code was transferred to System 800xA; the changeover was successfully made during a single weekend.
Milko, the largest Swedish owned co-operative dairy enterprise, ordered a complete replacement of one of their existing automation systems in Karlstad with about 4,500 signals. The installation will be implemented incrementally over the next two years.
Arla Foods, Europe’s largest dairy company, recently ordered an upgrade of their existing automation system in Stockholm with about 6000 signals. The first phase includes conversion of the control code and the commissioning is planned to take place over a single weekend in June 2006.