PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2011

BOTTLING / FILLING 29 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 05/11 www.petpla.net be optimised with three filling lines instead of two? This would require less downtime from fewer changeo- vers, which will help to achieve higher output. Up to 850 project-specific parameters can be included in a sepa- rately ordered TCO computation. Once the client has decided to go ahead with the project, detailed engi- neering work and detailed planning of all sections of the job will take four to six months. The factory planning team has two variants available for the construction work. The beverage company can, of course, commis- sion a local building firm to construct the shells. Krones will integrate and coordinate the interfaces to the techni- cal equipment involved and ensure that all the requirements for high-per- formance kit are incorporated in the actual building. Alternatively, Krones, acting as the general contractor could commission and control a building subcontractor. The company works with global firms of consulting construction engineers, with branch offices worldwide. This means that specialists for all parts of the job are involved; they know the national framework conditions, laws, standards and any idiosyncrasies of the site in question, and are used to coordinated working on large-scale projects in an international context. These partners are usually bound by a FIDIC (International Federation of Consulting Engineers) based con- tract, which lays down binding project conditions for all parties. FIDIC offers a sample contract text as an interna- tionally-recognised set of rules that serves as a basis for every interna- tional construction project. The factory planning team at Krones uses these standards for its major projects. Extensive advance auditing of all partners is done to ensure a high level of certainty for compliance with relevant quality requirements and deadlines. All vendors and subcontractors are audited by a benchmarking process, in order that effective procedures can be incor- porated into project implementation. This approach assures a high level of transparency for the process of creating a new factory. The importance of local knowledge Local conditions continue to be a major focus in the planning phase and actual construction work. For a turn- key project in Vietnam, for instance, approximately 2,200 piles were driven 40m into swampy soil. In other pro- jects, interfacing of PET and other packaging production facilities have been integrated into the project frame- work. In the construction phase, the team at Krones takes full responsibility for on-schedule completion of work. Project management includes inter- face management between the client’s project teams and Krones’ engineer- ing people, coordination of the various parts of the job, site management and liaison with local vendors. It is vital to work hand in hand with the client’s specialists, since it is they who are most thoroughly familiar with the details of daily operation, which form the basis for their optimisation concepts. However, since a project cannot be allowed to tie up the entire knowledge capacity of a beverage plant, Krones looks after all the details – leaving the client free to focus on its core business. Different countries and different products Krones’ factory planning team offers concepts for food production or dairy plants, as well as soft drinks and beer. Its structured approach means that individual stages of the planning process can be ordered separately. The company’s factory planning team has planned and completed about 30 projects in countries as varied as Angola, Vietnam, New Zealand, India, Iran, the USA and Mexico, at plants with outputs of between two and four million hl/a. www.krones.com In both greenfield and brownfield concepts, the function of all production sequences... ...is the paramount consideration in the planning process.