SMART FINANCE MEETS THE INVESTMENT CHALLENGE


• The urgent challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic have required Food & Beverage manufacturers to rapidly adapt to changed circumstances and patterns of consumption, and will continue to impact processes as businesses and consumers embrace ‘the new normal’. • Companies that invest in agile technologies including automation, digitalisation and retrofit projects are best placed to react to shifting market demands with optimum flexibility and resilience. The size of the investment required is, however, considerable. • New research from Siemens Financial Services (SFS) estimates that the global investment challenge for Food & Beverage industry for digital transformation alone is over $566 billion over the next five years. • Smart manufacturers are deploying new financing models, mainly from manufacturing-specialist financiers, to provide commercially sustainable ways of maintaining the momentum of technology and equipment investment. Siemens Financial Services (SFS)


has released a new whitepaper entitled ‘Rising to the New Challenge: The role of Smart Financing in helping the Global Food & Beverage Sector navigate the economic ‘new normal’.’ This is the second in a series of insight papers on the automation, retrofit and digital transformation investment challenges faced by manufacturers. The pandemic crisis and its


economic aftermath make the importance of investing in agile technologies even more critical. Historic evidence shows that companies that continued to invest in previous crises emerged ahead of their competitors. Such investments typically enable manufacturers to achieve levels of operating flexibility that can cope with uncertain and volatile markets – a flexibility that is becoming an increasingly important competitive advantage as patterns of supply and demand, as well as working and labour practices, are likely to fundamentally change as the crisis recedes and businesses and


DOUBLE DECK COOLER


Thermal process solutions provider Holmach has installed a NIKO raining water tunnel cooler for hot-filled product in their customer’s soup manufacturing facility. When this customer needed to promptly merge sites and rapidly increase production volume, Holmach and its partner NIKO of Germany, a producer of pasteurising and cooling tunnels, were the obvious choice. NIKO overcame the site space


consumers embrace ‘the new normal’. The size of the investment


challenge is, however, considerable. SFS has developed a model which conservatively estimates the size of the investment challenge faced by the Global Food and Beverage manufacturing industry as it seeks to implement smart factory technology during the five-year period 2020- 2024 (see box below).


Country


Brazil China France


Germany India Italy


Japan


Poland Russia


Scandinavia Spain


Turkey


Investment Challenge - (Bns of USD) 8.8


343.1 7.7 9.2 8.0 8.3


20.1 3.8 5.3 4.8 9.7 4.8


United Kingdom 4.4 United States


36.8


Rest of the world 91.9 Global Total


566.7 Expert commentators are advising


companies to diversify their financing sources, nurture existing lines of relationship credit, and harness alternative financing sources, such as Smart Financing, in order to preserve existing lines of credit. New financing models to enable technology and equipment investment are often aligned to business outcomes, to integrate financing closely with the expected rate of return-on-investment delivered through the benefits of


retrofitting existing installations and/or adopting new agile, digitalized technologies. “The flexibility offered by


upgrading existing platforms through retrofitting automation, or digitalisation can be a significant competitive differentiator during this crisis,” said Brian Foster, head of Industry Finance, Siemens Financial Services. “The ability to adapt swiftly and intelligently to rapidly changing markets remains an urgent need for businesses of all sizes. Smart finance enables sustainable investment based on clearly identified desired business outcomes for F&B manufacturers, facilitating access to the right technology and services with expert support from a specialist financier.” www.siemens.com/new-challenge- food-and-beverage


constraints of this project by designing the new 20m long tunnel to be slid on top of an existing NIKO machine to allow for a “double deck” operation. NIKO designed a leg support structure for the new deck whilst still allowing full access to the existing lower tunnel. NIKO effectively dealt with a


number of challenging scenarios to ensure that the start-up of the line went smoothly. Featuring a patented pump design, the NIKO unit offers energy cost savings of 50% compared with off-the- shelf pump/motor combinations. Delivering double the flowrate ensures good temperature distribution across each deck. Chilled water is used to rapidly lower the temperature after filling, and the cooler features a double skin construction allowing insulation, again concentrating on energy optimisation. Pasteurising and cooling


tunnels can be constructed to any size and with multiple zones, specific temperatures can be set and held for any desired thermal process. The NIKO product can handle


challenging foodstuffs such as gherkins, lemon slices and half cherries. The filling table design is the key to the High-Performance Long-Filler (HLF) filler. The design allows product to be separated and then correctly nested in the jars or cans to ensure accurate filling. Others advantages include no change parts being required for different formats and easy cleaning. www.holmach.co.uk


“The original designer and manufacturer of coaxial valves with 60 years of experience”


Te


Ema : Emaill: john.osborn@coaxvalves.co.uk Web: www.co-ax.com


Tel: 01908 067583 We


6 SEPTEMBER 2020 | PROCESS & CONTROL


High flow, high pressure, unique valve solutions for all standard and arduous Applications”.


/ PROCESS&CONTROL


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44