Ef­fect­ive from Janu­ary 2026 on, Al­ex­an­der Heiz­ler has taken his new po­s­i­tion as Chief Ex­ec­ut­ive Of­ficer (CEO) at dia­phragm pump man­u­fac­turer KNF. He has been with the com­pany since 2009 and served as Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­ficer (COO) since 2021. His ap­point­ment en­sures con­tinu­ity and re­flects KNF’s com­mit­ment to long-term sta­bil­ity as a fam­ily-owned busi­ness.

“I am honored to take on the role of CEO,” says Heiz­ler. “KNF stands for tech­no­lo­gic­al ex­cel­lence, strong val­ues, and a ded­ic­ated glob­al team. I look for­ward to con­tinu­ing this suc­cess­ful jour­ney.”

Passing on the bat­on

After more than 40 years at KNF, in­clud­ing 26 as CEO, Mar­tin Beck­er is step­ping down from op­er­a­tion­al lead­er­ship. He will now fully fo­cus on his role as Chair­man of the Board of Dir­ect­ors, where he looks for­ward to con­tinu­ing his close and trus­ted col­lab­or­a­tion with Al­ex­an­der Heiz­ler in a new ca­pa­city. This marks the com­ple­tion of a care­fully planned trans­ition. Mar­tin Beck­er will also re­main con­nec­ted to the com­pany as a share­hold­er.

“Passing on the op­er­a­tion­al lead­er­ship of KNF is a deeply per­son­al step for me,” Beck­er ex­plains. “I am proud of what we have built to­geth­er and fully trust Al­ex­an­der Heiz­ler to lead the com­pany with pas­sion and re­spons­ib­il­ity.”

Seam­less Trans­ition 

This lead­er­ship change un­der­scores KNF’s en­dur­ing val­ues and its clear vis­ion for the fu­ture as a glob­al tech­no­logy lead­er. With over 900 em­ploy­ees world­wide, KNF re­mains com­mit­ted to in­nov­a­tion, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, and cus­tom­er-fo­cused dia­phragm pump solu­tions.
 

For dec­ades, ys­tral has been a glob­al lead­er in the design and man­u­fac­ture of high-per­form­ance mix­ing, dis­pers­ing and powder-wet­ting ma­chines, as well as turn­key pro­cess sys­tems serving the chem­ic­al, phar­ma­ceut­ic­al, coat­ings, food and oth­er in­dus­tries. The com­pany has op­er­ated in In­dia since 2013 through its wholly owned sub­si­di­ary, ys­tral in­dia pvt ltd. The re­lo­ca­tion to the new Ban­galore site will en­able the In­di­an team to ex­pand from nine to fif­teen spe­cial­ists across pro­cess en­gin­eer­ing, elec­tric­al en­gin­eer­ing, soft­ware de­vel­op­ment, sales, and ser­vice. 

“This move re­flects our con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to en­han­cing op­er­a­tion­al ef­fi­ciency and de­liv­er­ing world-class ser­vice to our cus­tom­ers,” said Sri­r­anga­ra­jan Santhanam, Dir­ect­or of ys­tral in­dia. “Our new premises are equipped with ad­vanced in­fra­struc­ture and tools that meet the stand­ards of our Ger­man headquar­ters, en­sur­ing we con­tin­ue to provide in­nov­at­ive, re­li­able and tech­nic­ally soph­ist­ic­ated solu­tions.”

Strength­en­ing Com­pet­it­ive­ness Through Loc­al­isa­tion

As part of its stra­tegic growth plan, ys­tral will fur­ther in­crease the de­gree of com­pon­ent man­u­fac­tur­ing un­der­taken with­in In­dia while con­tinu­ing to pro­duce key high-pre­ci­sion com­pon­ents in Ger­many.

“Through in­creased loc­al­isa­tion, we are con­fid­ent that we will re­main highly com­pet­it­ive in the dy­nam­ic In­di­an mar­ket. Loc­al sourcing en­ables us to re­duce lead times, of­fer de­liv­ery in INR, and ac­cel­er­ate project ex­e­cu­tion – speed be­ing a de­cis­ive suc­cess factor in In­dia,” said Domin­ik See­ger, Seni­or Vice Pres­id­ent Sales at ys­tral.

In­dia as a High-Growth Stra­tegic Mar­ket

In­dia is cur­rently ys­tral’s fast­est-grow­ing mar­ket world­wide. The new Ban­galore fa­cil­ity is ex­pec­ted to evolve in­to a re­gion­al ser­vice hub sup­port­ing neigh­bour­ing Asi­an mar­kets, and to com­ple­ment op­er­a­tions in China and Singa­pore by tak­ing on ad­di­tion­al ser­vice re­spons­ib­il­it­ies. In ad­di­tion, ys­tral in­dia is ex­pec­ted to con­trib­ute soft­ware de­vel­op­ment ser­vices to the com­pany’s glob­al headquar­ters in Ger­many.  
 

Helga Lin­nartz was born near Co­logne, Ger­many, and holds a doc­tor­ate in phys­ics. She began her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer at En­dress+Haus­er in 1998 as a product man­ager for flow meas­ure­ment tech­no­logy in Re­in­ach, Switzer­land. In 2004, she moved to the sales cen­ter in the Neth­er­lands. In 2018, she be­came head of sales, ul­ti­mately tak­ing over as the sales cen­ter’s Man­aging Dir­ect­or in 2021. Through her in­volve­ment in projects and com­mit­tees, she has al­ways re­mained closely en­gaged with the Group’s stra­tegic top­ics.

“Dr Lin­nartz brings to her new role a wealth of ex­per­i­ence from vari­ous areas of our sales and product cen­ters. She has stra­tegic foresight and em­bod­ies the val­ues and cul­ture of En­dress+Haus­er,” said the Group’s Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­ficer Dr An­dreas Mayr. At En­dress+Haus­er Level+Pres­sure, Helga Lin­nartz will be­ne­fit from a seasoned man­age­ment team who in re­cent months have nav­ig­ated the va­cancy at their helm with great com­mit­ment and ded­ic­a­tion.

Glob­al pro­duc­tion net­work

En­dress+Haus­er Level+Pres­sure is the Group’s cen­ter of ex­cel­lence for level and pres­sure meas­ure­ment tech­no­logy and in­vent­ory man­age­ment solu­tions. Around 3,000 people world­wide work for the product cen­ter in re­search, de­vel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion. In ad­di­tion to its headquar­ters in Maul­burg, Ger­many, it has loc­a­tions in Stahns­dorf, Karls­ruhe and Et­tlingen, Ger­many; Rich­mond, United King­dom; Green­wood, In­di­ana, USA; Su­zhou, China; Ch­hat­rapati Sambhajin­agar, In­dia; Yaman­ashi, Ja­pan; and It­at­iba, Brazil.
 

Every year, the Valen­cian ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor gen­er­ates around 800,000 tons of plant waste, such as rice straw and cit­rus prun­ing waste. Cur­rently, the meth­ods for re­cov­er­ing this bio­mass are costly, as they re­quire com­mer­cial en­zymes that can rep­res­ent up to 40% of the cost of the pro­cess, which lim­its its in­dus­tri­al vi­ab­il­ity. To solve this prob­lem, AIM­PLAS, the Plastics Tech­no­logy Centre, based in Valen­cia, Spain, is lead­ing the BIOVALSA project, an ini­ti­at­ive that seeks to de­vel­op in­nov­at­ive pro­cesses for man­u­fac­tur­ing sus­tain­able bioplastics from ag­ri­cul­tur­al waste and prun­ing residues. The project is fun­ded by IVACE+i In­nov­a­tion and re­ceives fin­an­cial sup­port from the European Uni­on through the ERDF Comunit­at Valen­ciana pro­gramme for the 2021-2027 peri­od.

BIOVALSA will de­vel­op a new pro­cess that will en­able the use of ag­ri­cul­tur­al waste to man­u­fac­ture bioplastics, a sus­tain­able al­tern­at­ive to pet­ro­leum-based syn­thet­ics. This ini­ti­at­ive aims to de­vel­op al­tern­at­ive routes for re­cov­er­ing value from rice straw bio­mass, thereby avoid­ing the use of costly chem­ic­al com­pounds. Spe­cific­ally, the idea is to re­place the usu­al treat­ments with oth­ers that al­low the three frac­tions (cel­lu­lose, hemi­cel­lu­lose and lignin) that make up the ligno­cel­lu­losic bio­mass to be re­covered for use in vari­ous ap­plic­a­tions of in­terest to the bioplastics in­dustry.

Raw ma­ter­i­als for vari­ous plastics

Cel­lu­lose will thus be used to pro­duce lact­ic acid, a key com­pound in the man­u­fac­ture of PLA, the most widely used bioplastic, while hemi­cel­lu­lose is ex­pec­ted to yield suc­cin­ic acid, which is ne­ces­sary for the pro­duc­tion of PBS, an­oth­er sus­tain­able bi­opoly­mer with great­er flex­ib­il­ity and heat res­ist­ance.

Fi­nally, the an­ti­mi­cro­bi­al prop­er­ties of lignin make it suit­able for re­cov­ery and use as an ad­dit­ive to pre­vent the pro­lif­er­a­tion of mi­croor­gan­isms, which in­creases the mar­ket value and ex­pands the po­ten­tial ap­plic­a­tions of these bio­de­grad­able and com­postable ma­ter­i­als.

Col­lab­or­at­ing com­pan­ies and centres 

Co­ordin­ated by AIM­PLAS, which con­trib­utes its ex­per­i­ence in both waste re­cov­ery and bi­opoly­mer man­u­fac­tur­ing, “BIOVALSA” also brings to­geth­er spe­cial­ists from the Uni­versity In­sti­tute of Food En­gin­eer­ing at the Poly­tech­nic Uni­versity of Valen­cia (FoodUPV) and three oth­er com­pan­ies based in the Valen­cian Com­munity. Bioban will con­trib­ute its ge­n­om­ic ana­lys­is cap­ab­il­it­ies to identi­fy the most suit­able bac­teri­al strains for car­ry­ing out the treat­ments, while Vir­omii will study the eco­nom­ic vi­ab­il­ity of new pro­cesses for ob­tain­ing biocom­pos­ites. Fi­nally, Prime Bi­opoly­mers, as the end cus­tom­er, will be re­spons­ible for pro­du­cing the bio­ma­ter­i­als and ana­lyz­ing ap­plic­ab­il­ity of the ma­ter­i­als ob­tained dur­ing the project. 

The project is in its first year of de­vel­op­ment, dur­ing which pro­gress has been made in sep­ar­at­ing the com­pon­ents of rice straw us­ing al­tern­at­ive meth­ods that do not in­volve tox­ic sub­stances. Dif­fer­ent strains of bac­teria and mi­croor­gan­isms cap­able of break­ing down cel­lu­lose and hemi­cel­lu­lose to gen­er­ate the lact­ic and suc­cin­ic acids ne­ces­sary for the pro­duc­tion of bioplastics are also be­ing tested.

BIOVALSA is aligned with the con­clu­sions of the Stra­tegic Spe­cial­ised In­nov­a­tion Com­mit­tees (CEIE) on Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy and En­abling Tech­no­lo­gies, pro­moted by IVACE+i Innovación. In the first case, it re­sponds to the de­vel­op­ment of ma­ter­i­als and tech­no­lo­gies for the pro­duc­tion of high ad­ded-value products from waste and, in the second, it urges the ap­plic­a­tion of bi­o­tech­no­logy to im­prove pro­cesses and products. It also falls with­in the main axes of the Valen­cian Com­munity's Smart Spe­cial­isa­tion Strategy, S3, which is co­ordin­ated by the Re­gion­al Min­istry of In­dustry, Tour­ism, In­nov­a­tion and Trade.
 

The LAPP Ex­plor­a­tion Cen­ter of­fers a prac­tic­al plat­form for in­dus­tri­al com­mu­nic­a­tion and com­bines the­ory and prac­tice to sup­port com­pan­ies in im­ple­ment­ing mod­ern net­work solu­tions. The cer­ti­fic­a­tion con­firms that the Cen­ter meets the highest stand­ards in con­sult­ing, ana­lys­is and train­ing for PROFINET and re­lated tech­no­lo­gies.  

Xaver Schmidt, chair­man of the PROFIB­US User Or­gan­isa­tion e.V., said at the of­fi­cial present­a­tion: "The suc­cess­ful ap­plic­a­tion of our PI tech­no­lo­gies is based not least on the com­mit­ment and ex­pert­ise of our cer­ti­fied Com­pet­ence Cen­ters. LAPP has been act­ively in­volved in PI's stand­ard­isa­tion work for many years and has now also suc­cess­fully com­pleted its PICC qual­i­fic­a­tion. We con­grat­u­late them and wish the LAPP team many suc­cess­ful projects and activ­it­ies."  

Ad­ded value for cus­tom­ers: train­ing, con­sult­ing, se­cur­ity

Ad­ri­anus van de Noort, CSO LAPP EMEA, ac­cep­ted the award and em­phas­ised: ‘As a newly re­cog­nised PROFINET Com­pet­ence Cen­ter, we are strength­en­ing our tech­nic­al cred­ib­il­ity and demon­strat­ing our com­mit­ment to the highest stand­ards of qual­ity and ser­vice. With this cer­ti­fic­ate, we want to give our cus­tom­ers and part­ners even great­er con­fid­ence in our solu­tions and fur­ther ex­pand our po­s­i­tion as a re­li­able part­ner in the PROFINET en­vir­on­ment.’ 

As one of cur­rently 13 PI Com­pet­ence Cen­ters in Ger­many, the LAPP Ex­plor­a­tion Cen­ter of­fers train­ing courses, in­ter­op­er­ab­il­ity tests and proof-of-concept projects. Cus­tom­ers be­ne­fit from com­pre­hens­ive ex­pert­ise across all levels of mod­ern net­work ar­chi­tec­tures – from the field level to IT. With its cer­ti­fic­a­tion as a PI Com­pet­ence Cen­ter, LAPP un­der­scores its ex­pert­ise in act­ive com­pon­ents, net­work ana­lys­is and design, and adds an of­fi­cial seal of qual­ity to its es­tab­lished port­fo­lio of cables and con­nect­ors. The Ex­plor­a­tion Cen­ter is de­signed as a dy­nam­ic plat­form that of­fers con­tinu­ous ex­change, in­nov­at­ive formats and prac­tic­al ad­ded value for every­one in­volved in in­dus­tri­al com­mu­nic­a­tion.
 

WIKA has ex­pan­ded its pres­ence in North Africa by es­tab­lish­ing a new sub­si­di­ary in Cas­ab­lanca, Mo­rocco. Since 11 Decem­ber, the man­u­fac­turer of meas­ure­ment tech­no­logy is sup­port­ing its ex­ist­ing cus­tom­ers across the Maghreb re­gion from this loc­a­tion, while also driv­ing its sales activ­it­ies. This move forms part of WIKA’s strategy to op­er­ate with agil­ity world­wide through loc­al fa­cil­it­ies. By be­ing closer to cus­tom­ers and part­ners on site, the com­pany aims to pro­cess or­ders even more ef­fi­ciently and de­liv­er the highest level of ser­vice.

“The open­ing of the sub­si­di­ary in Mo­rocco marks an im­port­ant mile­stone in our re­gion­al growth strategy,” says Mar­cel Frei, Seni­or Vice Pres­id­ent South Europe at WIKA. “Our loc­al pres­ence en­ables us to of­fer cus­tom­ers even more flex­ible, per­son­al­ised sup­port and to strengthen col­lab­or­a­tion with re­gion­al part­ners. All of this in­creases WIKA’s vis­ib­il­ity in North Africa – and helps us to un­lock new mar­ket po­ten­tial.”

Why is tank mon­it­or­ing im­port­ant?
Tank mon­it­or­ing en­ables or­gan­isa­tions to op­tim­ise their in­vent­ory man­age­ment, en­sur­ing that ma­ter­i­als are avail­able when needed, stored safely and prop­erly doc­u­mented. If ma­ter­i­als are poorly tracked or stock levels be­come ex­cess­ive, the like­li­hood of spills or leaks in­creases, put­ting people and as­sets at risk. In­ac­cur­ate or in­com­plete re­cords of haz­ard­ous ma­ter­i­als can lead to pen­al­ties from reg­u­lat­ory au­thor­it­ies, leg­al ac­tion or even shut­downs. Real-time vis­ib­il­ity of ma­ter­i­al avail­ab­il­ity also en­ables cor­rect stock ro­ta­tion, pre­vent­ing product spoil­age or in­stabil­ity, and helps to en­sure op­er­a­tion­al ef­fi­ciency and foster good cus­tom­er re­la­tion­ships by avoid­ing pro­duc­tion delays and missed de­liv­er­ies. Fur­ther­more, op­tim­ised in­vent­ory man­age­ment im­proves cost con­trol – as ex­cess stock ties up cap­it­al and in­creases stor­age costs – and sup­ports sus­tain­ab­il­ity goals by re­du­cing waste.

How is tank mon­it­or­ing cur­rently per­formed?
In many plants, manu­al tank mon­it­or­ing meth­ods are still used. This can in­volve op­er­at­ors meas­ur­ing tank levels with dip­sticks or by visu­ally check­ing sight glasses. Some fa­cil­it­ies use semi-auto­mated devices such as ba­sic level gauges, but these of­ten re­quire read­ings to be manu­ally entered in­to a con­trol sys­tem, which breaks the chain of auto­ma­tion. These manu­al prac­tices per­sist largely be­cause they are fa­mil­i­ar, in­ex­pens­ive to set up and re­quire lim­ited tech­nic­al know-how. However, manu­al mon­it­or­ing is also la­bour-in­tens­ive and time-con­sum­ing, and can ex­pose work­ers to risks, as they of­ten have to climb tanks or ap­proach haz­ard­ous areas to take read­ings. Hu­man er­ror can eas­ily oc­cur when read­ings are es­tim­ated or tran­scribed, and be­cause data is cap­tured only in­ter­mit­tently, there is a lag between meas­ure­ment and de­cision-mak­ing.

What are the ad­vant­ages of auto­mated tank mon­it­or­ing sys­tems?
Auto­mated tank mon­it­or­ing sys­tems re­place peri­od­ic manu­al checks with con­tinu­ous, pre­cise and re­li­able meas­ure­ment of stored ma­ter­i­al volumes. This de­liv­ers real-time vis­ib­il­ity of stock levels and fa­cil­it­ates faster, bet­ter-in­formed de­cision-mak­ing, help­ing com­pan­ies pre­vent over­fills or stock short­ages and main­tain ac­cur­ate, audit­able re­cords. Auto­ma­tion elim­in­ates the need for work­ers to climb tanks, thereby im­prov­ing safety, while also re­mov­ing the risk of hu­man er­ror from meas­ure­ment and re­port­ing. Auto­mated sys­tems can also in­teg­rate dir­ectly with plant con­trol sys­tems or in­vent­ory plat­forms, provid­ing a uni­fied view of ma­ter­i­al data across sites and sup­ply chains.

What does a typ­ic­al auto­mated tank mon­it­or­ing sys­tem look like?
A mod­ern auto­mated solu­tion typ­ic­ally in­cludes sev­er­al core com­pon­ents. Non-con­tact­ing radar level sensors or oth­er trans­mit­ters meas­ure tank levels pre­cisely. Data from these in­stru­ments – as well as from pres­sure and tem­per­at­ure trans­mit­ters – is gathered by a loc­al data con­cen­trat­or that provides a field dis­play for tech­ni­cians and op­er­at­ors to view. A com­mu­nic­a­tion unit then trans­mits this data to the con­trol or in­vent­ory man­age­ment sys­tem via pro­to­cols such as Mod­bus or HART®. The res­ult is com­plete vis­ib­il­ity of stor­age op­er­a­tions, from tank to en­ter­prise level, with his­tor­ic­al data avail­able for audit­ing and fore­cast­ing.

What pre­vents some com­pan­ies from ad­opt­ing auto­mated tank mon­it­or­ing?
Al­though highly ef­fect­ive, tra­di­tion­al auto­mated tank mon­it­or­ing sys­tems have of­ten been viewed as com­plex to de­ploy. They can re­quire nu­mer­ous in­di­vidu­al device con­nec­tions, spe­cial­ised con­fig­ur­a­tion, and know­ledge of com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­to­cols. Up­front costs may also seem high for smal­ler op­er­a­tions. Many fa­cil­it­ies rely on older in­fra­struc­ture that can be dif­fi­cult to up­grade. The com­bin­a­tion of com­plex­ity, ex­pense and in­teg­ra­tion chal­lenges has of­ten slowed the trans­ition from manu­al to auto­mated sys­tems.

How are these bar­ri­ers be­ing over­come?
Auto­ma­tion sup­pli­ers such as Emer­son have de­veloped tank mon­it­or­ing hubs – devices that com­bine the roles of data con­cen­trat­or, com­mu­nic­a­tion unit and loc­al dis­play in­to a single, com­pact unit. This stream­lined ar­chi­tec­ture re­duces the num­ber of com­pon­ents needed and sim­pli­fies in­stall­a­tion and in­teg­ra­tion.

In a tra­di­tion­al set-up, each device might com­mu­nic­ate sep­ar­ately with the con­trol sys­tem, re­quir­ing mul­tiple wir­ing runs, con­vert­ers and power sup­plies. A mon­it­or­ing hub cent­ral­ises these con­nec­tions, col­lect­ing data from mul­tiple field in­stru­ments and send­ing it to the host sys­tem through a single com­mu­nic­a­tion in­ter­face. This ap­proach drastic­ally re­duces wir­ing, shortens set-up time and makes the sys­tem easi­er to ex­pand and main­tain.

Tank mon­it­or­ing hubs de­liv­er live read­ings of para­met­ers such as level, flow, volume and util­isa­tion, ac­cess­ible both in the field and in con­trol rooms. They con­nect flex­ibly with plant con­trol sys­tems and in­vent­ory man­age­ment soft­ware, in­teg­rat­ing smoothly with dis­trib­uted con­trol sys­tems (DCS), PLCs, SCADA or MES plat­forms. By em­bed­ding tank data dir­ectly in­to ex­ist­ing di­git­al work­flows, com­pan­ies can shift from re­act­ive to pro­act­ive in­vent­ory man­age­ment, im­prov­ing ef­fi­ciency, re­du­cing costs, strength­en­ing sup­ply chain re­li­ab­il­ity and sup­port­ing com­pli­ance and safety ob­ject­ives.

Are these hubs user-friendly?
Yes – ease of use has be­come a key design goal for mod­ern mon­it­or­ing hubs. The Rose­mount™ 2405 Mon­it­or­ing Hub from Emer­son, for ex­ample, provides set-up tools that guide tech­ni­cians through con­fig­ur­a­tion step by step, min­im­ising the need for spe­cial­ised skills. This is es­pe­cially valu­able when in­teg­rat­ing devices from mul­tiple vendors, each with dif­fer­ent con­fig­ur­a­tion and set-up re­quire­ments.

Se­lect­ing a tank mon­it­or­ing hub with a built-in graph­ic­al dis­play en­ables quick ac­cess to crit­ic­al in­form­a­tion on-site. Fea­tures such as QR-coded as­set tag­ging fur­ther stream­line main­ten­ance by link­ing dir­ectly to di­git­al manu­als and sup­port re­sources, help­ing tech­ni­cians dia­gnose and re­solve is­sues quickly. This not only re­duces down­time but also sup­ports pre­dict­ive main­ten­ance by ad­dress­ing prob­lems be­fore they es­cal­ate.

For fa­cil­it­ies with lim­ited tech­nic­al ex­pert­ise, such sim­pli­fied in­ter­faces make auto­ma­tion more at­tain­able. En­gin­eers no longer need to mas­ter mul­tiple com­mu­nic­a­tion stand­ards or tools. The res­ult is a more in­tu­it­ive, sus­tain­able sys­tem that pro­motes op­er­a­tion­al ef­fi­ciency, reg­u­lat­ory com­pli­ance and di­git­al trans­form­a­tion.

Are there any spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tions when se­lect­ing a hub?
Yes, equip­ment re­li­ab­il­ity is vi­tal be­cause it can be im­pacted by harsh in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments with cor­ros­ive sub­stances, mois­ture, dust, vi­bra­tion and ex­treme tem­per­at­ures. Tank mon­it­or­ing hubs must be en­gin­eered for con­sist­ent ac­cur­acy and re­si­li­ence un­der such de­mand­ing con­di­tions, as fail­ures can af­fect safety, com­pli­ance and pro­ductiv­ity. In­gress pro­tec­tion rat­ings such as IP66/67 and Type 4X in­dic­ate res­ist­ance to dust, wa­ter and cor­ro­sion, while in­ter­na­tion­al haz­ard­ous area cer­ti­fic­a­tions con­firm suit­ab­il­ity for loc­a­tions where flam­mable gases, va­pours or dust may be present.

It is also im­port­ant to con­sider the flex­ib­il­ity and com­pat­ib­il­ity of the in­stru­ment­a­tion con­nec­ted to the hub. Be­cause the Rose­mount 2405 Mon­it­or­ing Hub com­mu­nic­ates via the HART pro­tocol, op­er­at­ors can se­lect from a broad port­fo­lio of trans­mit­ters, each op­tim­ised for dif­fer­ent meas­ure­ment needs and pro­cess con­di­tions. This al­lows the mon­it­or­ing sys­tem to be tailored pre­cisely to the ap­plic­a­tion.

Choos­ing a hub with both com­pre­hens­ive glob­al cer­ti­fic­a­tions and wide trans­mit­ter com­pat­ib­il­ity en­sures a con­tinu­ous, de­pend­able mon­it­or­ing ar­chi­tec­ture cap­able of de­liv­er­ing ac­cur­ate data even in ex­treme con­di­tions. This level of re­li­ab­il­ity pro­tects per­son­nel and the en­vir­on­ment, min­im­ises costly un­planned down­time and sup­ports com­pli­ance with strin­gent in­dustry stand­ards.

The stand­ard­ized 1000-liter IBC is used as a trans­port, stor­age, and col­lec­tion con­tain­er for a wide vari­ety of li­quid pro­cess me­dia. Its fill level is an im­port­ant vari­able in many ap­plic­a­tions, but as a mo­bile unit it can­not be in­teg­rated in­to hard-wired mon­it­or­ing sys­tems. The Pep­perl+Fuchs autonom­ous IoT wire­less sensor WILSEN.son­ic meas­ures the fill level of in­ter­me­di­ate bulk con­tain­ers (IBCs) and sends the meas­ured value to the tar­get in­stance via LoR­aWAN. The device is simply screwed in­to the stand­ard­ized lid open­ing.

Trans­mis­sion of fill level and op­tion­al geo-po­s­i­tion

The 2-inch ex­tern­al thread of the IBC-WILSEN.son­ic fits in­to the stand­ard open­ing in the IBC lid. Its meas­ur­ing range is pre­set for this ap­plic­a­tion, so para­met­er­iz­a­tion is not ne­ces­sary. Ul­tra­son­ic sensors are vir­tu­ally un­af­fected by ex­tern­al in­flu­ences and the ma­ter­i­al prop­er­ties of the me­di­um, and the ro­bust device, which is suit­able for out­door use, re­li­ably de­liv­ers meas­ured val­ues with mil­li­metre ac­cur­acy. These are trans­mit­ted by the in­teg­rated wire­less sensor node via LoR­aWAN. 

De­pend­ing on the fre­quency of data trans­mis­sion, the re­place­able bat­tery can last up to ten years. With min­im­al in­stall­a­tion ef­fort pre­vi­ously un­mon­itored as­sets can be mon­itored and com­mu­nic­ated with. Cur­rent fill level val­ues, in­clud­ing the GPS geo-po­s­i­tion if re­quired, are avail­able for pro­cess op­tim­iz­a­tion and pre­dict­ive IBC lo­gist­ics.
 

In response to the recent global shortage of Germanium, an essential material for optical components in long-wavelength infrared cameras, Optris has engineered and launched a new optical design that completely removes the need for Germanium. Germanium has long been the main material for lenses and windows in thermal imaging systems. However, issues like supply shortages, export restrictions, and rising prices have created uncertainty. Despite these challenges, Optris continues to provide reliable product availability by leading the way with a new generation of infrared optics.

Advanced optical engineering without Germanium 

The new Optris optics utilize a unique combination of specially designed infrared glasses to take the place of rare earth elements such as Germanium.
These optics offer important benefits for thermal imaging applications:

• Achromatic design — Other manufacturers have successfully used infrared glass technology for years, but suffered from size of source effects and color aberrations, degrading optical resolution and accuracy. Optris novel combination of glasses allows minimal chromatic aberration, ensuring precise thermal imaging across the long-wavelength infrared spectrum.
• Athermalized construction — the focal point remains stable and nearly independent of temperature changes. This allows the same focus setting to be set independently of operating temperatures.
• Germanium-free materials — completely free from Germanium or other restricted materials, ensuring long-term supply security.
   

Stable performance, seamless transition 

With these new optics, Optris is not just addressing the issues caused by Germanium shortages but also setting a new standard for the industry. Customers can now count on the same precision and reliability of thermal cameras, without worrying about material availability. For customers, only minimal changes result. Field of view (FOV), F-number, and image sharpness are fully comparable to traditional Germanium optics. The launch of Germanium-free infrared optics shows Optris’ agile commitment to innovation, supply chain stability, and technological independence. 

Iteratively, most lenses are replaced by this new optical design. Optris has completed the merge of the first lenses. Most optics will be swapped to the new design by the end of the year.

The dairy pro­cessor ex­tracts whey pro­tein from its dairy pro­duc­tion activ­it­ies, which sig­ni­fic­antly re­duces waste. This pro­cess is quite a re­cent phe­nomen­on; many dair­ies used to dis­pose of thou­sands of tons of whey as a waste product. Now, they are pro­du­cing pro­tein that can be ad­ded to a range of products such as milk, shakes, pud­dings and yoghurt. With many people re­ly­ing on pro­tein sup­ple­ments to im­prove their health, de­mand for these products is high.

A new pro­cess flow for dair­ies

The pro­cess in­volves re­cov­er­ing whey from milk us­ing ad­vanced sep­ar­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies, pro­du­cing li­quid whey. This is then pas­teur­ised and ul­tra filtered to make vary­ing grades of whey pro­tein. Thin and con­cen­trated whey is blen­ded to pro­duce stand­ard whey, which is then stored for later use. Ef­fi­ciently ex­tract­ing pro­tein from whey re­lies on tak­ing highly ac­cur­ate pro­tein con­cen­tra­tion read­ings throughout the en­tire pro­cess. To meas­ure this, dair­ies need to re­cord the sol­id con­tent in the li­quid whey.

Ac­cur­ate meas­ure­ment of pro­tein is of par­tic­u­lar im­port­ance at many dair­ies, es­pe­cially where sites are faced with chal­lenges in whey stor­age ca­pa­city. Some op­er­at­ors have moved to a con­tinu­ous ex­trac­tion pro­cess that can re­duce on-site stor­age re­quire­ments by up to two thirds.

“The FLOWave provides highly ac­cur­ate sol­id con­tent meas­ure­ments in thin, con­cen­trated and stand­ard whey that are used to con­trol the blend­ing pro­cess. This con­tinu­ous con­trol and pro­duc­tion of stand­ard whey means only the fin­ished product re­quires stor­age. The in­stant­an­eous read­ings from FLOWave fol­low­ing strain­ing, fil­tra­tion and blend­ing play an im­port­ant role in this in­nov­at­ive pro­cess,” adds Jon Roberts, Ac­count Man­ager at Bürkert.

With re­cent mar­ket con­di­tions present­ing many chal­lenges for dair­ies, pro­tein has offered a wel­come rev­en­ue stream from a by-product that was once con­sidered waste. Cap­it­al­ising on this op­por­tun­ity re­lies on hav­ing the most ac­cur­ate and re­spons­ive pro­cessing equip­ment on the line. For meas­ur­ing pro­tein in whey, the FLOWave is prov­ing to be the cream of the cur­rent crop.

“This ex­cit­ing project proves to the dairy in­dustry there are oth­er op­tions to Cori­ol­is flow meters when meas­ur­ing pro­tein in whey or milk. In fact, with its large range of meas­ure­ment para­met­ers and sizes, the FLOWave lends it­self well to oth­er bever­age ap­plic­a­tions too,” Kier­an con­cludes.
 

With the new DULCODOS SAFE-IBC F&B, ProMinent is launching a metering and emptying station for intermediate bulk containers (IBCs) that has been specially developed for the requirements of the food and beverage industry. The system ensures maximum process reliability and the highest level of food safety – from storage to the precise metering of food ingredients and additives. All components that come into contact with the medium comply with the requirements of EC Regulations 1935/2004 and EN 10/2011. This reduces the risk of contamination in sensitive production areas.

Continuous supply

An integrated intermediate container with a volume of around 80 litres ensures that the dosing process continues without interruption even when changing the IBC. Leak-proof couplings and food-grade hoses prevent dripping and leakage. A wheel-accessible drip tray safely collects any residues and reduces the cleaning effort. A visual level indicator and automated alarm functions provide early warning of refilling or maintenance requirements. Sensors continuously monitor the process, thereby increasing operational safety.

Modular system for efficient processes

The slightly inclined installation surface of the IBC ensures that residues are almost completely emptied. This reduces material costs and minimises waste. The system is CIP-compatible (cleaning in place) and can be cleaned without dismantling.

For precise dosing tasks, the station can be combined with the ready-to-connect DULCODOS Compact DSKb F&B dosing system, which also complies with EC 1935/2004. The two components work together seamlessly to enable the hygienic and controlled dosing of liquid media. The modular design allows for straightforward integration into existing systems and can be flexibly expanded as required.

Optionally, the DULCOLEVEL radar sensor can be used to measure the fill level without contact and transmit the values automatically. This enables operators to monitor their processes, document them seamlessly, and fulfil their documentation obligations for quality control and audit purposes.
 

The mul­ti­func­tion­al safety lim­iter JUMO safetyM TA of­fers cer­ti­fied safety in ac­cord­ance with SIL 2/SIL 3 (IEC 61508) and PL c/PL d (ISO 13849). Thanks to its uni­ver­sal in­put for pres­sure, flow, tem­per­at­ure, and level, the JUMO safetyM TA can be eas­ily con­figured to a wide range of pro­cess re­quire­ments. The user con­fig­ur­able vot­ing func­tion en­ables safe op­er­a­tion even in de­graded plant con­di­tion (1oo2D vot­ing prin­ciple), thereby ef­fect­ively re­du­cing non-crit­ic­al ma­chine down­time and scrap pro­duc­tion. In ad­di­tion, the device of­fers min. and max. mon­it­or­ing as well as an ad­justable time for de­graded op­er­a­tion, which fur­ther max­im­izes plant avail­ab­il­ity.

The flex­ible con­fig­ur­a­tion of vari­ous SIF scen­ari­os, such as 1oo2D vot­ing, 2oo2, and STB/STW, makes the JUMO safetyM TA a valu­able ad­di­tion to the JUMO Safety Per­form­ance fam­ily. Easy in­teg­ra­tion in­to ex­ist­ing sys­tems and a high de­gree of com­pat­ib­il­ity with dif­fer­ent ap­plic­a­tions be­ne­fit cus­tom­ers through a sus­tain­able and ef­fi­cient solu­tion for their se­cur­ity re­quire­ments. It the ideal solu­tion for de­mand­ing ap­plic­a­tions in ther­mo­pro­cess tech­no­logy, the pro­cess in­dustry, the phar­ma­ceut­ic­al in­dustry, the food and bever­age in­dustry, and in dair­ies as well as brew­er­ies.
 

In many in­dus­tri­al pro­cesses, in­clud­ing al­kaline elec­tro­lys­is, the early and re­li­able de­tec­tion of gas bubbles plays a cru­cial role in main­tain­ing pro­cess sta­bil­ity, product qual­ity, and equip­ment pro­tec­tion. Even small amounts of gas can in­dic­ate dis­turb­ances such as leaks, back­flow, or phase trans­itions that com­prom­ise meas­ure­ment ac­cur­acy and over­all sys­tem per­form­ance.

Us­ing ul­tra­son­ic tech­no­logy, SensoTech’s Li­quiSon­ic® sys­tem provides real-time de­tec­tion of gas bubbles dir­ectly in the pro­cess line. The sensor con­tinu­ously ana­lyses acous­tic sig­nals, while an in­tel­li­gent al­gorithm iden­ti­fies char­ac­ter­ist­ic pat­terns caused by gas-re­lated dis­turb­ances. This en­ables op­er­at­ors to re­cog­nize an­om­alies at an early stage and sup­ports both pre­dict­ive main­ten­ance and con­sist­ent pro­cess safety.

Re­place­ment of manu­al sampling

Li­quiSon­ic® sensors are de­signed for con­tinu­ous in­line op­er­a­tion and can sim­ul­tan­eously meas­ure con­cen­tra­tion and de­tect gas bubbles, elim­in­at­ing the need for manu­al sampling. Their ro­bust, main­ten­ance-free design and high meas­ure­ment ac­cur­acy make them suit­able for a wide range of ap­plic­a­tions – from chem­ic­al and en­ergy pro­cesses to car­bon cap­ture, green fuel syn­thes­is, and oth­er flu­id-based sys­tems where re­li­ab­il­ity and trans­par­ency are es­sen­tial. The com­bin­a­tion of two crit­ic­al meas­ure­ment func­tions – con­cen­tra­tion mon­it­or­ing and gas bubble de­tec­tion – in­to a single, re­li­able in­line solu­tion in­creases ef­fi­ciency, op­er­a­tion­al safety, and scalab­il­ity. 
 

Pro­cess in­dus­tries are un­der­go­ing a fun­da­ment­al trans­form­a­tion to­ward autonom­ous pro­duc­tion sys­tems. These prom­ise not only great­er ef­fi­ciency and sus­tain­ab­il­ity but also the abil­ity to ad­apt dy­nam­ic­ally to chan­ging con­di­tions. The path for­ward in­volves in­teg­rat­ing in­tel­li­gent con­trol tech­no­lo­gies and or­ches­trat­ing com­plex sys­tems across the en­tire plant li­fe­cycle.

A fully autonom­ous pro­cess plant seam­lessly in­teg­rates four core areas in­to a self-reg­u­lat­ing sys­tem:

• Lo­gist­ics: Al­gorithms pre­dict ma­ter­i­al re­quire­ments and autonom­ously op­tim­ize sup­ply chains.
• Pro­duc­tion: Pro­cesses con­tinu­ously ad­apt to raw ma­ter­i­al qual­it­ies, product spe­cific­a­tions, and en­ergy prices, or­ches­trat­ing hun­dreds of in­ter­act­ing vari­ables without hu­man in­ter­ven­tion.
• Main­ten­ance: Sys­tems de­tect wear early and dy­nam­ic­ally ad­just main­ten­ance in­ter­vals to plant con­di­tions.
• Op­tim­iz­a­tion: Data-driv­en and mod­el-based meth­ods con­tinu­ously im­prove en­ergy and cost ef­fi­ciency, yield, and product qual­ity.
   

These four areas must not only func­tion in­di­vidu­ally but work to­geth­er in or­ches­trated har­mony. However, be­fore this over­all or­ches­tra­tion be­comes pos­sible, power­ful tech­no­lo­gies are needed for each field of ac­tion. For the fields of pro­duc­tion and op­tim­iz­a­tion, Ad­vanced Pro­cess Con­trol (APC) has es­tab­lished it­self as a key tech­no­logy. APC forms the tech­nic­al back­bone of autonom­ous pro­cess op­er­a­tion by com­bin­ing pro­cess con­trol with con­tinu­ous op­er­a­tion­al op­tim­iz­a­tion, go­ing sig­ni­fic­antly bey­ond con­ven­tion­al con­trol sys­tems. APC in­teg­rates vari­ous tech­no­logy do­mains, par­tic­u­larly mod­el pre­dict­ive con­trol (MPC).

Three core ap­plic­a­tions of APC

APC pur­sues three cent­ral op­tim­iz­a­tion ob­ject­ives: in­creas­ing through­put at bot­tle­necks, re­du­cing en­ergy and re­source con­sump­tion, and sta­bil­iz­ing product qual­ity. At bot­tle­necks, such as dis­til­la­tion columns, fur­naces, or com­pressors, APC con­tinu­ously main­tains crit­ic­al para­met­ers at their op­tim­al lim­its, a prin­ciple known as "kiss­ing con­straints". This en­ables ca­pa­city in­creases or cost re­duc­tions of typ­ic­ally up to ten per­cent without ad­di­tion­al hard­ware. In en­ergy op­tim­iz­a­tion, APC min­im­izes the con­sump­tion of fuels, for ex­ample, through con­tinu­ous ad­just­ment. Qual­ity sta­bil­iz­a­tion is achieved through vir­tu­al sensors that es­tim­ate and con­trol product prop­er­ties in real time. This can re­duce plant off-spec pro­duc­tion by 20 to 70 per­cent while op­tim­iz­ing product trans­itions.

Tech­no­lo­gic­ally, APC com­bines the areas of mod­el­ing, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, op­tim­iz­a­tion, and con­trol: Pro­cess mod­els (grey-box, white-box, or black-box) are trained and em­bed­ded in real-time op­tim­iz­a­tion al­gorithms. Mod­el pre­dict­ive con­trol (MPC) cal­cu­lates fu­ture pro­cess be­ha­vi­or in ad­vance and ad­justs ma­nip­u­lated vari­ables pre­vent­ively, en­sur­ing op­tim­al op­er­a­tion of the pro­duc­tion pro­cess. This is par­tic­u­larly valu­able for long dead times (typ­ic­al in thermal pro­cesses), pro­nounced non­lin­ear be­ha­vi­or (such as in chem­ic­al re­ac­tions), and strong coup­ling between pro­cess vari­ables, or mul­tivari­able sys­tems – scen­ari­os where tra­di­tion­al PID con­trol­lers reach their lim­its. This is com­ple­men­ted by pro­ced­ur­al auto­ma­tion, which makes com­plex se­quences such as star­tup, shut­down, or product changeovers sys­tem­at­ic and re­pro­du­cible. What once re­lied on the ex­per­i­en­tial know­ledge of in­di­vidu­al op­er­at­ors is now stand­ard­ized, trans­par­ent, and ro­bust.

From the­ory to prac­tice: a mod­u­lar ap­proach

The prac­tic­al im­ple­ment­a­tion of APC re­quires dif­fer­ent meth­ods for dif­fer­ent pro­cess char­ac­ter­ist­ics. For con­tinu­ously op­er­ated pro­cesses with mod­er­ate non­lin­ear­it­ies, lin­ear mod­el pre­dict­ive meth­ods have proven ef­fect­ive. More com­plex scen­ari­os, such as batch pro­cesses in the phar­ma­ceut­ic­al in­dustry or highly non­lin­ear re­ac­tions in poly­mer chem­istry, re­quire non­lin­ear meth­ods that util­ize de­tailed pro­cess mod­els. Re­cent de­vel­op­ments with mod­els based on ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence work more data-ef­fi­ciently than clas­sic­al ma­chine learn­ing ap­proaches and are cap­able of op­tim­iz­ing and con­trolling highly non­lin­ear sys­tems. This can be com­ple­men­ted by soft sensors, an­om­aly de­tec­tion, and plan­ning mod­ules for site-wide op­tim­iz­a­tion. SIMAT­IC APC, Siemens' APC suite, il­lus­trates this hol­ist­ic ap­proach: mod­u­larly de­signed, ver­tic­ally in­teg­rable from field level to en­ter­prise plan­ning, scal­able from in­di­vidu­al con­trol­lers to site-wide op­tim­iz­a­tion. SIMAT­IC APC cov­ers the en­tire APC work­flow, from PID tun­ing through sys­tem con­fig­ur­a­tion to autonom­ous op­er­a­tion and closed-loop AI, of­fer­ing com­pre­hens­ive solu­tions for all pro­cess con­trol re­quire­ments and APC tech­no­lo­gies, in­clud­ing SIMAT­IC APC Ser­vices. Pro­duc­tion pro­cesses can thus be con­tinu­ously im­proved step by step.

Meas­ur­able value in prac­tice

The op­tim­iz­a­tion of spray dry­ers for in­fant for­mula at Siemens cus­tom­er Dan­one ex­em­pli­fies the value of SIMAT­IC APC: Siemens de­ployed a phys­ics-based di­git­al twin as a soft sensor that con­tinu­ously mon­it­ors product mois­ture con­tent and per­forms real-time op­tim­iz­a­tion. The res­ults: Product mois­ture con­tent in­creased by five per­cent, vari­ab­il­ity de­creased by 30 per­cent, with a re­turn on in­vest­ment of less than six months. This ex­ample demon­strates how APC sim­ul­tan­eously im­proves product qual­ity, re­source and cost ef­fi­ciency, and eco­nom­ic vi­ab­il­ity through pre­cise pro­cess con­trol. The soft sensor can re­place costly labor­at­ory ana­lyses with con­tinu­ous on­line mon­it­or­ing and real-time mod­els, en­abling the sys­tem to cal­cu­late pro­cess para­met­ers such as air tem­per­at­ure and through­put that are not meas­ur­able in real time or are too ex­pens­ive to meas­ure. Yet des­pite such suc­cesses, a lim­it­a­tion also be­comes ap­par­ent: Vari­ous sys­tems such as APC and soft sensors work hand in hand. Ex­per­i­enced en­gin­eers must or­ches­trate these sys­tems, in­ter­pret data from dif­fer­ent sources, and make de­cisions.

From pro­cess ex­cel­lence to plant or­ches­tra­tion

The chal­lenge in real­iz­ing autonom­ous pro­cess op­er­a­tions of­ten lies not in the per­form­ance of in­di­vidu­al sys­tems but in their or­ches­tra­tion across dif­fer­ent sys­tems. Each field of ac­tion, from lo­gist­ics to op­tim­iz­a­tion, has de­veloped its own IT sys­tems, data mod­els, time scales, and work­flows. APC op­er­ates on time scales from seconds to hours, main­ten­ance plan­ning in weeks, ma­ter­i­al or­der­ing in days. Data mod­els are in­com­pat­ible, in­ter­faces are manu­al. Each plant is in­di­vidu­ally con­figured, doc­u­mented, and main­tained – a pro­cess that can take months and tie up con­sid­er­able re­sources.

In the pro­cess in­dustry of the fu­ture, agen­t­ic sys­tems ad­dress this chal­lenge: Spe­cial­ized soft­ware agents take on defined tasks such as op­er­a­tion­al op­tim­iz­a­tion, ma­ter­i­al plan­ning, and main­ten­ance co­ordin­a­tion, and com­mu­nic­ate with each oth­er like a team of ex­per­i­enced spe­cial­ists. The cru­cial dif­fer­ence: Agents com­bine de­cent­ral­ized in­tel­li­gence with cent­ral­ized co­ordin­a­tion. Changes are not made in isol­a­tion but eval­u­ated in the con­text of the over­all plant.

Agen­t­ic sys­tems are scal­able and ad­apt­ive, as they learn from data and ad­just their be­ha­vi­or to chan­ging con­di­tions. An agent for en­ergy op­tim­iz­a­tion could, for ex­ample, learn to an­ti­cip­ate volat­ile elec­tri­city prices and ad­just pro­duc­tion plans ac­cord­ingly. Ad­di­tion­ally, agents ne­go­ti­ate solu­tions for con­flict­ing ob­ject­ives: If pro­duc­tion de­mands max­im­um through­put but main­ten­ance plans an in­spec­tion, the agents find a com­prom­ise, such as a brief in­spec­tion dur­ing an already planned product changeover.

The tech­nic­al found­a­tion of these agents is in­dus­tri­al-grade ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence – AI sys­tems spe­cific­ally de­veloped for the re­quire­ments of the pro­cess in­dustry. Un­like gen­er­ic AI mod­els, these sys­tems take in­to ac­count phys­ic­al laws, safety re­quire­ments, and reg­u­lat­ory spe­cific­a­tions. They are trans­par­ent in their de­cisions, ro­bust against in­com­plete data, and cer­ti­fi­able for safety-crit­ic­al ap­plic­a­tions.

In­teg­ra­tion across li­fe­cycle and hier­archy

Con­nect­ing agents in­to a co­ordin­ated net­work en­ables seam­less in­teg­ra­tion across the en­tire plant li­fe­cycle – from design and plan­ning through en­gin­eer­ing and op­er­a­tion to main­ten­ance and mod­ern­iz­a­tion. Today, each phase has its own tools with manu­al data ex­change: CAD sys­tems for design, en­gin­eer­ing tools for con­fig­ur­a­tion, con­trol sys­tems for op­er­a­tion, main­ten­ance man­age­ment sys­tems for up­keep, and APC sys­tems for op­er­a­tion­al op­tim­iz­a­tion and con­trol. Changes in op­er­a­tion are not auto­mat­ic­ally trans­ferred to en­gin­eer­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion. Agen­t­ic sys­tems break down these silos: A di­git­al twin serves as a com­mon data found­a­tion that agents con­tinu­ously up­date. When a main­ten­ance agent re­places a pump, the op­tim­iz­a­tion agent auto­mat­ic­ally re­cog­nizes the new per­form­ance para­met­ers and ad­apts its mod­els.

The situ­ation is sim­il­ar with ver­tic­al in­teg­ra­tion across hier­arch­ic­al levels: from in­di­vidu­al sensors through pro­cess units to sites and en­ter­prise level. In­dus­tri­al co­pi­lots (AI as­sist­ants for op­er­at­ors and en­gin­eers) con­sol­id­ate com­plex data volumes and make them ac­cess­ible across levels. In the fu­ture, autonom­ous AI agents will build work­flow-ori­ented net­works modeled on the work­ing meth­ods of hu­man teams. The res­ult: a fully in­teg­rated li­fe­cycle with con­sist­ent data and co­ordin­ated de­cisions.

Out­look: the syn­ergy of APC and agen­t­ic sys­tems

The com­bin­a­tion of Ad­vanced Pro­cess Con­trol as the tech­nic­al found­a­tion for pro­cess con­trol and op­tim­iz­a­tion with agen­t­ic or­ches­tra­tion sys­tems cre­ates the basis for the next gen­er­a­tion of autonom­ous pro­cess plants. While APC de­liv­ers ex­cel­lence in pro­cess op­er­a­tion, agents en­able or­ches­tra­tion across pro­cess bound­ar­ies. This syn­ergy can el­ev­ate tra­di­tion­al per­form­ance met­rics to a new level in the fu­ture: Prof­it­ab­il­ity in­creases through bet­ter re­source util­iz­a­tion and re­duced down­time, product qual­ity be­comes more stable through co­ordin­ated con­trol across the en­tire value chain. Sys­tem­at­ic en­ergy op­tim­iz­a­tion and emis­sions re­duc­tion im­prove sus­tain­ab­il­ity, while faster product changeovers and more flex­ible pro­duc­tion plan­ning shorten time-to-mar­ket.
 

HMS Net­works an­nounced the launch of the N-Tron NT110-FX2, an un­man­aged Eth­er­net switch with 2 fiber ports, the NT111-FX3, an un­man­aged Eth­er­net switch with 3 fiber ports, and the NT112- FX4, an un­man­aged Eth­er­net switch with 4 fiber ports, de­signed for in­dus­tri­al ap­plic­a­tions need­ing de­pend­able per­form­ance for mis­sion-crit­ic­al ap­plic­a­tions un­der harsh con­di­tions. The new NT100 un­man­aged series of­fers ex­cep­tion­al re­li­ab­il­ity and per­form­ance for data ac­quis­i­tion, Eth­er­net I/O and pro­cess con­trol. 

De­signed for harsh en­vir­on­ments

Com­pact in size with eight high per­form­ance cop­per ports (10/100BaseTX RJ45) and 2, 3 or 4 100BaseFX fiber ports, the switches are housed in rugged in­dus­tri­al met­al en­clos­ures. The new switches of­fer high shock and vi­bra­tion tol­er­ance. The RJ45 ports have built in ESD and surge pro­tec­tion. Fiber ports are avail­able with SC or ST con­nect­ors in mul­timode or single mode con­fig­ur­a­tions. Users be­ne­fit from an ex­cep­tion­al 1.2M hour MT­BF rat­ing, in slim, space-sav­ing designs that op­er­ate in tem­per­at­ures from -40°C to 85°C.

For ro­bust net­work sup­port, the NT110-FX2, NT111-FX3 and NT112-FX4 un­man­aged switches sup­port full wire speed com­mu­nic­a­tion. Each mod­el em­ploys store-and-for­ward tech­no­logy with sup­port for full and half du­plex op­er­a­tion. Two 10-49 VDC power in­puts are provided for re­dund­ancy. The new switches carry UL Or­din­ary and Haz­ard­ous loc­a­tions as well as ATEX and IECEx cer­ti­fic­a­tion in ad­di­tion to IEEE 802.3 com­pli­ance and mar­ine, rail­way and rolling stock cer­ti­fic­a­tions.

Easi­er data gath­er­ing

The N-Tron NT100 series from HMS Net­works makes crit­ic­al per­form­ance data easi­er to gath­er. Their rugged and hardened designs provide the dur­ab­il­ity and re­li­ab­il­ity needed to with­stand the ex­treme con­di­tions found on fact­ory floor con­trol net­works and in oil and gas, util­it­ies, wa­ter/wastewa­ter treat­ment, al­tern­at­ive en­ergy, rail, in­tel­li­gent traffic con­trol and trans­port­a­tion ap­plic­a­tions.

TURCK presents a new solu­tion for Eth­er­net com­mu­nic­a­tion in haz­ard­ous areas. The GEN-2G mul­ti­pro­tocol gate­way en­ables a con­tinu­ous, in­trins­ic­ally safe, cop­per-based Eth­er­net in­fra­struc­ture in ATEX Zone 1 for the first time. The new solu­tion ex­pands the ex­ist­ing ex­com sys­tem with the GEN-3G Zone 2 gate­way, now al­low­ing easy con­ver­sion from Profib­us DP to Eth­er­net com­mu­nic­a­tion in Zone 1 as well – without re­pla­cing the I/O and sensor level.

Hot swap­ping op­tion

Com­mu­nic­a­tion between non-haz­ard­ous and haz­ard­ous areas is car­ried out us­ing fiber op­tic cables with TURCK's FOCEN11Ex-2G and FOCEN11-3G me­dia con­vert­ers – over dis­tances of up to 2,500 m. From this point, sev­er­al ex­com sta­tions can be in­teg­rated in­trins­ic­ally safely via cop­per cables in Zone 1. This elim­in­ates the pre­vi­ously com­mon, costly point-to-point in­stall­a­tion of each sta­tion via fiber op­tic cable. The GEN-2G mul­ti­pro­tocol gate­way even al­lows hot swap­ping dur­ing op­er­a­tion without the need for a fire ex­tin­guish­er. With the GEN-2G, ex­ist­ing ex­com in­stall­a­tions can also be quickly and cost-ef­fect­ively con­ver­ted to Eth­er­net com­mu­nic­a­tion and made fu­ture-proof. 

In­ter­na­tion­al ap­provals such as ATEX, IECEx, CCC, and oth­ers, as well as mari­time ap­provals (DNV, BV, LR, ABS, KR) ex­pand the sys­tem's range of ap­plic­a­tions. The solu­tion en­ables easy con­nec­tion of sensors and ac­tu­at­ors as well as the in­teg­ra­tion of HART data for dia­gnostics and II­oT ap­plic­a­tions. Since the en­tire ex­com fam­ily has sys­tem ap­prov­al for haz­ard­ous areas, ex­ten­sions do not need to be re-ap­proved; this can be done by the user.
 

In­cid­ents like the Collins Aerospace cy­ber­at­tack should serve as a warn­ing for Europe’s crit­ic­al in­fra­struc­ture. They show just how fra­gile the di­git­al back­bone of trans­port, en­ergy and man­u­fac­tur­ing can be when cy­ber­se­cur­ity stops at the or­gan­iz­a­tion­al level. 

To counter these risks, the European Uni­on’s (EU) new Net­work and In­form­a­tion Sys­tems Dir­ect­ive (NIS2) de­mands that cy­ber­se­cur­ity goes bey­ond fire­walls and pass­words. The dir­ect­ive re­quires ad­di­tion­al vis­ib­il­ity, ac­count­ab­il­ity and re­si­li­ence – not only with­in an or­gan­iz­a­tion’s own in­di­vidu­al sys­tems but across its en­tire eco­sys­tem. 

NIS2 marks a turn­ing point for in­dus­tri­al and en­ergy com­pan­ies. Cy­ber­se­cur­ity has moved from a box-tick­ing ex­er­cise to something that can define an or­gan­iz­a­tion’s sur­viv­al.

Set­ting the scene

Dir­ect­ive (EU) 2022/2555, or NIS2, is the EU’s most am­bi­tious cy­ber­se­cur­ity le­gis­la­tion to date. It aims to es­tab­lish a high com­mon level of cy­ber­se­cur­ity across the EU, ex­pand­ing pro­tec­tion to a wider range of sec­tors in­clud­ing en­ergy, trans­port, health­care and di­git­al in­fra­struc­ture. The dir­ect­ive re­quires early warn­ings and strict re­port­ing of sig­ni­fic­ant in­cid­ents with­in 24 hours. 

Com­pan­ies must there­fore ad­opt risk man­age­ment meas­ures cov­er­ing ac­cess con­trol, en­cryp­tion, zero-trust ar­chi­tec­ture and busi­ness con­tinu­ity plan­ning. What dis­tin­guishes NIS2 is its reach – the dir­ect­ive doesn’t stop at the net­work edge. Sup­ply chains, cloud ser­vices and soft­ware pro­viders are now in­cluded in the se­cur­ity peri­met­er. For many in­dus­tri­al play­ers, this will bring a rad­ic­al shift from com­pli­ance to con­tinu­ous vi­gil­ance. 

What NIS2 really changes

The first Net­work and In­form­a­tion Se­cur­ity Dir­ect­ive was ad­op­ted in 2016 and laid the found­a­tions for the new, more strin­gent dir­ect­ive. NIS2 ad­dresses gaps ex­posed by years of frag­men­ted na­tion­al rules and rising cross-bor­der threats. The new dir­ect­ive forces op­er­at­ors of es­sen­tial and im­port­ant en­tit­ies to build cy­ber­se­cur­ity in­to every lay­er of their op­er­a­tions, from policy and pro­cure­ment to their daily pro­cesses.

Or­gan­iz­a­tions covered by NIS2 must now im­ple­ment doc­u­mented risk man­age­ment frame­works, re­port in­cid­ents with­in tight time­frames and prove that tech­nic­al and or­gan­iz­a­tion­al meas­ures are in place to pre­vent dis­rup­tion. This in­cludes con­tinu­ous mon­it­or­ing, iden­tity and ac­cess man­age­ment and busi­ness con­tinu­ity plan­ning such as backup man­age­ment and dis­aster re­cov­ery.

The pen­al­ties for fail­ure are steep. Non-com­pli­ance can mean fines of up to two per cent of an­nu­al glob­al turnover for es­sen­tial en­tit­ies (crit­ic­al sec­tors such as en­ergy, di­git­al in­fra­struc­ture, bank­ing and trans­port). Moreover, the con­sequences of a pen­alty can go bey­ond the fin­an­cial, ser­i­ously im­pact­ing an or­gan­iz­a­tion’s cred­ib­il­ity. 

Safe­guard­ing es­sen­tial en­tit­ies

In­dus­tri­al and en­ergy com­pan­ies form the back­bone of Europe’s crit­ic­al in­fra­struc­ture, and their ex­pos­ure to cy­ber­at­tacks is grow­ing. These com­pan­ies face heightened ob­lig­a­tions un­der NIS2. Pro­duc­tion lines, grids and con­trol rooms once isol­ated from the in­ter­net now de­pend on cloud sys­tems, smart sensors and real-time data ex­change. Each new con­nec­tion ex­pands the po­ten­tial sur­face for at­tack.

Mean­while, the con­ver­gence of IT and OT sys­tems has cre­ated new vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies in auto­ma­tion and in­dus­tri­al con­trol net­works. In today’s con­nec­ted op­er­a­tions, OT sys­tems are no longer the ‘is­lands’ they once were and are sus­cept­ible to at­tack. The US Cy­ber­se­cur­ity and In­fra­struc­ture Se­cur­ity Agency (CISA) high­lights that at­tacks on in­dus­tri­al con­trol sys­tems (ICS) in­creas­ingly ex­ploit re­mote ac­cess, weak seg­ment­a­tion and un­patched devices. 

NIS2 makes cy­ber­se­cur­ity more than just an IT prob­lem – it’s an is­sue of over­all op­er­a­tion­al con­trol. Pro­tect­ing up­time now de­pends on man­aging di­git­al risk as thor­oughly as phys­ic­al safety. Grid sta­bil­ity, load man­age­ment and even sup­ply con­tinu­ity hinge on the se­cur­ity of in­ter­con­nec­ted sys­tems.

The weak­est link

The Collins Aerospace ransom­ware at­tack showed that third parties can be a weak link in even the best de­fen­ded sys­tems. NIS2 dir­ectly tar­gets this weak­ness. It makes or­gan­iz­a­tions ac­count­able not only for their own de­fences, but also for the cy­ber­se­cur­ity meas­ures of their sup­pli­ers, con­tract­ors and ser­vice pro­viders.

Ac­cord­ing to the European Uni­on Agency for Cy­ber­se­cur­ity (EN­ISA), third-party risk is now one of the fast­est-grow­ing vec­tors for crit­ic­al in­fra­struc­ture at­tacks. Com­prom­ised soft­ware up­dates, in­sec­ure cloud con­fig­ur­a­tions and un­mon­itored vendors can all be­come entry points for dis­rup­tion.

Un­der NIS2, com­pan­ies must treat their sup­ply chain as part of their op­er­a­tion­al net­work. That means as­sess­ing part­ners’ risk ex­pos­ure, en­for­cing con­trac­tu­al cy­ber­se­cur­ity clauses and in­teg­rat­ing mon­it­or­ing in­to cent­ral Se­cur­ity In­form­a­tion and Event Man­age­ment (SIEM) and Se­cur­ity Op­er­a­tions Centre (SOC) sys­tems. Re­si­li­ence now de­pends on vis­ib­il­ity across every di­git­al con­nec­tion.

From reg­u­la­tion to read­i­ness with smart soft­ware

Com­ply­ing with NIS2 in­volves design­ing se­cur­ity in­to the heart of in­dus­tri­al op­er­a­tions. Choos­ing smart soft­ware plat­forms cre­ated with se­cur­ity in mind, such as COPA-DATA’s zen­on, is a cru­cial step. Built for auto­ma­tion and en­ergy en­vir­on­ments, its func­tion­al­it­ies already sup­port many of the dir­ect­ive’s tech­nic­al and or­gan­iz­a­tion­al re­quire­ments out of the box.

zen­on’s se­cur­ity-by-design ap­proach re­in­forces ac­cess con­trol and com­mu­nic­a­tion in­teg­rity through role-based user man­age­ment, en­cryp­tion and cer­ti­fic­ate hand­ling. It of­fers cent­ral­ized mon­it­or­ing, en­abling con­tinu­ous vis­ib­il­ity across mul­tiple dis­trib­uted sites, while alarm man­age­ment and event log­ging can de­tect an­om­alies early and feed se­cur­ity events in­to ex­ist­ing SIEM/SOC sys­tems.

Busi­ness con­tinu­ity and re­si­li­ence is equally crit­ic­al. zen­on’s re­dund­ancy and dis­aster-re­cov­ery fea­tures safe­guard avail­ab­il­ity dur­ing in­cid­ents, sup­port­ing con­tinu­ity plans re­quired un­der NIS2. Auto­mated re­port­ing closes the loop – provid­ing trans­par­ent re­cords for audits and reg­u­lat­ory no­ti­fic­a­tions without manu­al in­ter­ven­tion.

To fur­ther strengthen com­pli­ance, COPA-DATA’s de­vel­op­ment pro­cess for zen­on is cer­ti­fied ac­cord­ing to IEC 62443-4-1, en­sur­ing align­ment with NIS2’s ex­pect­a­tions for doc­u­mented and con­tinu­ously im­prov­ing se­cur­ity prac­tices. 

In ad­di­tion, COPA-DATA of­fers struc­tured up­grade paths and Ser­vice Level Agree­ments (SLAs) that keep sys­tems up to date and fully main­tain­able. These agree­ments provide the veri­fi­able doc­u­ment­a­tion aud­it­ors re­quire, help­ing or­gan­iz­a­tions demon­strate that their soft­ware en­vir­on­ment is con­sist­ently com­pli­ant with evolving NIS2 ob­lig­a­tions. zen­on also of­fers for­ward and back­ward com­pat­ib­il­ity – mak­ing it sim­pler to in­stall new ver­sions and thus keep se­cur­ity-rel­ev­ant up­dates con­sist­ently ap­plied. 

In par­tic­u­lar, its built-in backup hand­ling sup­ports the NIS2 man­date for defined backup- and re­cov­ery-pro­cesses: zen­on projects can be backed up and re­stored at any time. The res­ult is a prac­tic­al frame­work for op­er­a­tion­al con­fid­ence, where cy­ber­se­cur­ity be­comes in­teg­rated in­to the sys­tem’s every­day in­tel­li­gence.

The fu­ture of se­cur­ity

NIS2 raises the bar for Europe’s crit­ic­al in­fra­struc­ture – and the dir­ect­ive’s im­plic­a­tions are long-term. For in­dus­tri­al and en­ergy op­er­at­ors, it places cy­ber­se­cur­ity as part of op­er­a­tion­al ex­cel­lence. The chal­lenge now is both cul­tur­al and tech­nic­al. As the glob­al land­scape changes, se­cur­ity must be­come a con­tinu­ously evolving pro­cess, em­bed­ded in design, main­ten­ance and stra­tegic sup­ply-chain de­cisions.

For­tu­nately, those who act early can turn com­pli­ance in­to com­pet­it­ive strength, us­ing auto­ma­tion and real-time data to make re­si­li­ence meas­ur­able and stay ahead of po­ten­tial threats. Plat­forms like zen­on show the shift is already hap­pen­ing and that cy­ber­se­cur­ity isn’t just a box to tick. It’s a sys­tem that thinks ahead, in an era where foresight may be the most valu­able se­cur­ity con­trol of all.
 

The Swedish bottled wa­ter in­dustry is ex­pand­ing rap­idly, driv­en by shift­ing con­sumer pref­er­ences to­ward health­i­er hy­dra­tion, as well as strin­gent qual­ity and sus­tain­ab­il­ity stand­ards. For pro­du­cers of nat­ur­al min­er­al wa­ter, like Gutt­sta Källa, main­tain­ing con­sist­ent com­pressed air qual­ity and high-speed ef­fi­ciency is para­mount. Com­pressed air is the crit­ic­al force be­hind pre­cise filling, and auto­mated pack­aging. The chal­lenge was find­ing a re­li­able, en­ergy-ef­fi­cient sys­tem that could sup­port sig­ni­fic­ant pro­duc­tion scal­ing without com­prom­ising the food-grade com­pressed air qual­ity re­quired for the Swedish Food Au­thor­ity's strict ap­prov­al. Tra­di­tion­al sys­tems of­ten fall short on ef­fi­ciency and re­li­ab­il­ity un­der such de­mand­ing con­di­tions.

The com­pre­hens­ive ELGi solu­tion, in­clud­ing EG Series com­pressors, re­ceiv­er tanks, dry­ers, and fil­ters, ad­vances the pro­duc­tion at Gutt­sta Källa with its re­li­ab­il­ity-centred design and en­ergy-ef­fi­cient tech­no­logy. The in­stall­a­tion was tailored to meet the unique de­mands of high-speed bever­age pro­duc­tion, de­liv­er­ing stable com­pressed air pres­sure across all pro­cesses, from bottle filling to fi­nal pal­let­ising.

"ELGi is com­mit­ted to en­gin­eer­ing ma­chines that of­fer max­im­um op­er­a­tion­al value and sus­tain­ab­il­ity be­ne­fits to our cus­tom­ers," said Tord Sand­berg, Seni­or Man­ager – Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment. "The suc­cess at Gutt­sta Källa is a per­fect ex­ample of how our su­per­i­or air-end tech­no­logy and com­pre­hens­ive com­pressed air treat­ment pack­ages provide the re­li­ab­il­ity and ef­fi­ciency ne­ces­sary for the most de­mand­ing ap­plic­a­tions, like food and bever­age pro­duc­tion, en­abling true op­er­a­tion­al ex­pan­sion."

He ad­ded, "Our col­lab­or­a­tion with our loc­al part­ner, Se­gel­borgs In­dus­triser­vice AB, en­sured that the sys­tem was ex­pertly com­mis­sioned, fully sup­por­ted, and op­tim­ised to min­im­ise total cost of own­er­ship while max­im­ising up­time for Gutt­sta Källa’s crit­ic­al bot­tling line."

Key Res­ults and Be­ne­fits for Gutt­sta Källa:

• Pro­duc­tion Scal­ing: En­abled an in­crease in pro­duc­tion ca­pa­city, sup­port­ing Gutt­sta Källa’s mar­ket growth.
• En­ergy Ef­fi­ciency: Val­id­ated en­ergy sav­ings of 120,000 kWh an­nu­ally, sig­ni­fic­antly re­du­cing op­er­a­tion­al costs and car­bon foot­print.
• Com­pressed Air Qual­ity As­sur­ance: Multi-stage fil­tra­tion guar­an­tees re­li­able com­pressed air qual­ity. 
• Pres­sure Sta­bil­ity: De­livered con­sist­ent, stable pres­sure across the en­tire fa­cil­ity, en­sur­ing ac­cur­ate filling.
• Re­spons­ive Sup­port: Ex­cel­lent loc­al sup­port from Se­gel­borgs In­dus­triser­vice AB en­sures rap­id is­sue res­ol­u­tion and sus­tained up­time.
   

The ELGi sys­tem, defined by its pat­en­ted air­end design and in­tel­li­gent con­trols, was en­gin­eered for longev­ity and max­im­ising per­form­ance while min­im­ising power con­sump­tion. This care­ful or­ches­tra­tion of tech­no­logy en­sured con­tinu­ity of pro­duc­tion throughout the mod­ern­isa­tion trans­ition.

ELGi’s range of com­pressed air solu­tions, in­clud­ing the en­ergy-ef­fi­cient EG Series com­pressors, is avail­able glob­ally through ELGi’s ex­tens­ive Chan­nel Part­ner net­work. These screw air com­pressors are spe­cific­ally de­signed to meet di­verse in­dustry re­quire­ments for re­li­ab­il­ity and en­ergy ef­fi­ciency.
 

Ley­bold is of­fer­ing the TRI­VAC rotary vane pump for a log time. The ro­bust, oil-sealed va­cu­um pump com­bines many ad­vant­ages and is used in in­dus­tri­al and re­search ap­plic­a­tions – for gen­er­at­ing pres­sures in the rough and fine va­cu­um range and as a back­ing pump that can be com­bined with Roots, dif­fu­sion, tur­bomolecu­lar, and cryo­gen­ic pumps. Ley­bold has now de­veloped the TRI­VAC L, a new mod­el of the proven two-stage rotary vane va­cu­um pump with op­tim­ized air cool­ing.

For a wide range of ap­plic­a­tions

This in­nov­a­tion of­fers users the ideal bal­ance of per­form­ance, re­li­ab­il­ity, and ef­fi­ciency. This makes the TRI­VAC L ideal for meet­ing the re­quire­ments of mod­ern, sus­tain­able va­cu­um pro­cesses. In pro­duc­tion en­vir­on­ments with high hu­mid­ity, the pat­en­ted three-stage gas bal­last en­sures op­tim­ized wa­ter va­por tol­er­ance. It is also equipped with stand­ard flanges for in­let and out­let con­nec­tions. The out­let is suit­able for ver­tic­al and ho­ri­zont­al align­ment. This makes the rotary vane pump ideal for use in ana­lyt­ics, re­search and de­vel­op­ment, me­tal­lurgy, the pro­duc­tion of air con­di­tion­ing sys­tems and heat pumps, the freeze-dry­ing of food and phar­ma­ceut­ic­als, and the coat­ing of car­ri­er ma­ter­i­als for semi­con­duct­or or sol­ar tech­no­logy.

Avail­able in dif­fer­ent pump­ing speed classes

Ley­bold of­fers the TRI­VAC in pump­ing speed classes ran­ging from 5.8 to 92/110 m³/h (50/60 Hz). The va­cu­um spe­cial­ist also provides cus­tom­ized designs and spe­cific­a­tions for mod­els with spe­cial re­quire­ments re­gard­ing mo­tors, oils, or sys­tems. For the stand­ard TRI­VAC L, vari­ants are avail­able for all mo­tor op­tions across dif­fer­ent re­gions world­wide. For easy and ef­fi­cient op­er­a­tion, the pump is equipped with a sight glass for mon­it­or­ing the oil level and a stand­ard drain valve for ap­plic­a­tions re­quir­ing fre­quent oil changes.
 

NXD is the sur­face treat­ment from NORD Drivesys­tems for gear units, smooth mo­tors and fre­quency in­vert­ers in the com­pany's flex­ibly con­fig­ur­able alu­mini­um port­fo­lio. It provides the users with an eco­nom­ic and ef­fect­ive al­tern­at­ive for the sur­face pro­tec­tion of drive solu­tions, which are heav­ily stressed by ex­treme en­vir­on­ment­al con­di­tions. With NXD, NORD in­creases the dur­ab­il­ity of these drive sys­tems and thus pro­longs the sys­tem avail­ab­il­ity. The sur­faces are free from chro­mates and PFAS.

Two vari­ants for ef­fect­ive pro­tec­tion

With NXD, alu­mini­um sur­faces are gal­van­ised, mak­ing them par­tic­u­larly cor­ro­sion-res­ist­ant and dur­able. The latest gen­er­a­tion of sur­face pro­tec­tion is avail­able in two vari­ants. NXD BA­SIC® con­sists of the gal­van­ic­ally-pro­duced base lay­er with an ad­di­tion­al var­nish. Cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion is also en­sured in case of dam­age to the var­nish. The vari­ant is suit­able for use un­der de­mand­ing en­vir­on­ment­al con­di­tions such as off­shore areas. 

The second vari­ant is the food-safe NXD tupH®. Here, this gal­van­ised base lay­er is treated with a seal­er. This pro­cess pre­vents flak­ing or mi­cro­cracks prone to germs. NXD tupH® of­fers safe sur­face pro­tec­tion for ex­treme con­di­tions in wash-down ap­plic­a­tions. It makes drive solu­tions res­ist­ant to acids and al­kalis from the reg­u­lar clean­ing and dis­in­fec­tion pro­cesses. Even if dam­age oc­curs to the gal­van­ised base lay­er, no particles will flake off due to the seal­ing, which makes NXD tupH® sur­faces hy­giene-friendly and thus suit­able for use in hy­gien­ic­ally crit­ic­al in­dus­tries. NXD tupH® is food-safe ac­cord­ing to FDA and ac­cord­ing to EU Reg­u­la­tion 1935/2004. This makes com­pon­ents with an NXD tupH® sur­face suit­able for the pro­cessing of hy­gien­ic­ally sens­it­ive products in al­most every im­port­ant mar­ket world­wide. 

Alu­mini­um of­fers nu­mer­ous ad­vant­ages

With NXD, NORD re­veals the ad­vant­ages of alu­mini­um for de­mand­ing en­vir­on­ments and hy­gien­ic­ally sens­it­ive pro­duc­tion areas. Alu­mini­um is light­weight, eco­nom­ic­al and fully re­cyc­lable. Fur­ther­more, alu­mini­um hous­ings provide bet­ter heat con­duct­iv­ity, thus re­du­cing their max­im­um sur­face tem­per­at­ure.NXD is avail­able for all NORD drive com­pon­ents made of alu­mini­um, in­clud­ing the in­teg­rated DuoDrive geared mo­tor sys­tem, the en­ergy-ef­fi­cient IE5+ smooth mo­tors as well as NORD­B­LOC.1® hel­ic­al in-line gear units and NORD­B­LOC.1® bevel gear units. With the NOR­DAC ON PURE, a de­cent­ral­ised fre­quency in­vert­er with an NXD tupH in­ter­face will also be avail­able soon.