Pilkington has chosen Siemens for a 100-day production line retrofit at its plant in Weiherhammer, Germany.

The manufacturer decided to use Siemens to modernise its Float Two line with retrofit, ensuring that production remains economical.

The automation solutions from its long-term partner Siemens were used to upgrade the line. This allowed Pilkington to reduce energy consumption and exhaust emissions through intelligent controls. The open system architecture also provides a high degree of flexibility.

Reinhold Gietl, Plant Director at Pilkington, said: “By upgrading to a PCS 7 process control system, we now have a future-orientated investment in place on Float Line 2, which we can operate with complete confidence.”

As part of the upgrade, the process control system has also been replaced with a solution from Siemens, which had already been tested and approved in a factory acceptance test with Karlsruhe.

Mr Gietl continued: “Our central department at Pilkington worked closely with the Siemens specialists and colleagues from the plant at Weiherhammer during the control system upgrade.

"The combination of automation and project management specialists worked perfectly.

"It is only through years of intense and proven collaboration with Siemens that we have been able to complete a project of this complexity without any problems in such a short period of time.”

The decentralised control system guarantees a high-quality production process as the PCS 7 process control system monitors precise maintenance of all variables during glass production.

Intelligent controls also contribute to energy savings and minimising exhaust emissions. This means that the process control system provides an optimum technical platform to meet the growing demands on economy, conservation of resources and environmental sustainability.

At the same time, the open system architecture also provides a high degree of flexibility, which is a precondition for further technical upgrades.

Pictured: Siemens' PCS 7 process control system used by Pilkington