A shake up in food and drink
July 1st 2005

The Vinopolis wine museum in London was an appropriate venue for ABB to launch a new package of products and services for the food and beverage market. Ian Clay reports for IP&E... Steve Ruddell, ABB’s general manager drives and motors has said that “ABB has been active in the food and beverage industry for over 30 years.” However, the global giant now believes that the time is right to launch an aggressive attack plan for its AC drives within the sector.

There are five key elements to ABB’s plans for the sector. The first of these is a dedicated team of nine application engineers with expertise in pump, fan, chiller, compressor and conveyor applications and offers 22 dedicated service support engineers throughout the UK. Complementing this team is the ABB Drive Alliance network and the ABB Motor Service Partners.

A second major element is a series of new product launches specifically designed for the sector. A range of intuitive standard drives, claimed by Gary Busby, industry manager for food and beverage to be “The easiest drives in the market to set up straight out of the box” is available from ABB. Standard drives are rated from 0.75 to 355kW, 200 and 400V and can offer nine different predefined settings, covering the majority of food industry applications. If a parameter needs to be altered for an application, this can be done easily. It is also possible to set up the application manually. A maintenance assistant keeps track of the running time and gives a signal when maintenance is required, while a real time clock and calendar enables the user to cycle events according to the time of day, week or month. Other features include: •Mobile phone type, intuitive control panel for easy commissioning, fast set up and rapid fault diagnosis.

•Patent pending harmonics suppression. Swinging DC chokes suppress harmonics caused by the inverter •EMC compliance built in. EMC filter to first environment is included.

•Braking chopper included as standard. This adsorbs braking energy, helping decelerate the load quicker and saves space.

•Noise reduced – a noise optimisation feature increases the switching frequency when the motor load is reduced, lowering motor noise. Noise is further reduced through the higher switching frequency of the sensorless vector control platform and a controlled cooling fan.

•Fieldbus ready – Modbus as standard.

Profibus, DeviceNet and LON Works can be added using adapter cards.

The third key element is the industry’s desire to capitalise on ABB’s ability to supply both motors and drives. “The standard drive is making variable speed control accessible to a whole new user group” says Gary Busby adding “In particular we are finding strong demand for matched drive and motor packages.

We also provide complete drive and motor combinations approved for ATEX.

Our drives and motors have been tested by an approved notified body and we can offer blanket certification on matched pairs.” Identification of the major issues in the sector resulted in ABB’s fourth key element in its plan, the launch of a bespoke energy study service and a drives replacement programme. ABB believes that part of the reason for the increasing interest in drives and motors in the food sector is greater awareness of energy issues and a growing acceptance of AC technology. Other factors are the expected rise in the cost of electricity which when you consider that the food and beverage industry is the third largest energy consuming sector after metals and chemicals is bound to have an enormous impact on profitability.

ABB’s six step energy plan involves ABB experts ‘walking the plant’ and identifying energy saving opportunities as well as offering advice on finance incentives and legislation. Working with ABB, users will be given a commercial and technical energy report from which they can make their decision surrounding saving energy. One company that benefited greatly from this process is salt maker Salt Union. The company replaced a 337kW fan motor with a 132kW motor and drive combination from ABB. The savings from this are £100 000 per year! The replacement scheme for variable speed drives will, ABB believes, ensure a seamless upgrade for older drives in food and beverage installations. The first stage involves assessing the site and the applications.

Next, any specific engineering that is needed to ensure the application performs optimally is considered. Then follows removal, disposal and recycling of existing drives, as well as motors that are not compatible with modern frequency converters. To keep downtime to a minimum, ABB’s Drive Alliance Partners can install and commission to fit with the user’s needs – even during weekends and bank holidays if necessary.

The final element in the company’s plan is to launch and run a series of technology seminars aimed at educating users about the key issues that affect efficiency and productivity in the sector such as: harmonics; energy; ATEX maintenance etc.

ABB’s comprehensive offering for the food and beverage sector is a combination of highly engineered, quality products, technical back up and information. This will give users a powerful resource in this market amid growing competition, regulation and legislation.

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