Bremen-based fresh fruit and vegetable specialist, Univeg Deutschland, operates a large-scale warehouse with banana ripening chamber in Hamburg. Tropical fruit delivered to the chamber in an unripened condition is brought to precisely the required degree of ripeness. To achieve this, the company relies on an automation solution using integrated engineering from Siemens. The new automation solution is flexible, helps reduce the engineering effort required and permits excellent ripening results at precisely the required time.
Top banana?
When Germany’s favourite fruit, the banana, arrives on the country’s shores from its place of origin, it is still green and unsuitable for consumption. This is why bananas are placed in special ripening chambers in which they are treated with ripening gas, a mixture of nitrogen and ethylene. This activates the natural ripening process, which is then precisely controlled by means of temperature and ventilation. The aim is to supply ripe bananas to the trade at precisely the right time through a process of finely tuned adjustment.
“We practically take control of the natural process which bananas would go through on the tree by producing their own ethylene and ripening in the same way as apples or kiwis”, explains René' Dlugos, operations manager at the Hamburg location. Organic bananas are ripened in the same way, but naturally in a separate chamber.
Perfectly ripened fruit
Gas analytics technology and sensors as well as refrigeration technology from Siemens ensure the right climate inside the ripening chambers. The ventilators are also driven by a number of speed-controlled drives from Siemens. In this way, the temperature, differential pressure, ethylene, carbon dioxide and oxygen content are continuously measured and adjusted. The ripening foreman uses a central visualisation system to keep a close eye on whether the same conditions exist consistently in all the individual boxes. It took just under six weeks to renew all 14 ripening chambers. Since the renovation project was completed, Univeg is able to ripen bananas to precisely the right level using a lower input of energy in a shorter time, allowing it to consolidate its leading market position across the whole of Europe.
Automated ripening chambers
As some of the existing ripening chambers had become uneconomical, Univeg decided to build 14 new ones. These are equipped with an integrated automation solution using the latest controllers, HMI systems and drives from Siemens. Each ripening chamber has a dedicated controller integrated in its own control cabinet using the installation technology of the distributed I/O system Simatic ET2000SP. The performance of the selected Simatic-CPU 1510SP-1 PN is custom tailored to the specific requirements and can be integrated into Profinet installations. This design enhances availability, as in the event of a failure, only one chamber would be affected and not the entire system. Two compact Sinamics G120C converters can be connected via Profinet to each of the controllers, each of which drives three fans.
A Profinet interface also permits remote diagnostics and maintenance of the systems. Maintenance is performed directly on site using Basic Operator Panels. The ripening chambers are operated and monitored using the operator’s previous HMI devices and by new type TP700 Comfort Simatic HMI panels.
Integral diagnostics
Decisive to the success of this solution was the integrated and standardised engineering of all the Siemens components within the TIA-Portal engineering framework. The Sinamics Startdrive tool also enables the drives and motors to be conveniently engineered within the engineering framework. The local and global libraries concept also enabled modules, components or plant sections, which had been programmed once, to be adopted for use in new projects, making short work of modular machine and program configuration and saving a large amount of time. It was possible to migrate the majority of the already existing central visualis-ation system with WinCC into the TIA Portal, significantly simplifying project updating.
For more information contact Jennifer Naidoo, Siemens Southern Africa, +27 (0)11 652 2795, jennifer.naidoo@siemens.com, www.siemens.co.za
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