This Mexican sugar plant is the only one of its kind to automate all its processes
By El Financiero
20:13:00 – September 19, 2018
From the screen of a smartphone it is possible to monitor that the 10 areas of the plant are working correctly.
IRAPUATO.- In this plant located in Irapuato, Guanajuato, all the processes for the production of 150 thousand liters of liquid sugar are carried out by a system.
The plant, owned by the Mexican company Sucroliq, is the only one of its kind in the world to fully automate all its processes.
To achieve this, the plant implemented industry 4.0 and automation solutions offered by the German multinational Siemens, such as the SIMATIC PCS 7 process control system, the TIA-Star Motor Control Center and engineering and network services communication Profibus and Profinet.
“Industry 4.0 technology, installed by Siemens, offers levels of efficiency and process control that no sugar plant has in the country,” said Enrique Bojórquez Valenzuela, president of Sucroliq.
In a statement, he pointed out that regarding the level of efficiency and control, from the screen of a smartphone it is possible to monitor that the 10 areas of the plant are working correctly.
The main technology used in this plant, which required a total investment of 7.5 million dollars, is SIMATIC PCS 7, also developed by Siemens, and which consists of a solution that integrates everything necessary to fully and safely automate the entire production process.
Bojórquez Valenzuela said that the decision to ally with Siemens and apply the best technology worldwide in industry 4.0 was due to the fact that food companies demand high quality standards.
Sucroliq is the leading company in Mexico in converting granular sugar into liquid sugar for the food industry, and is located within the unit that Danone has in Irapuato, which in turn is considered the production center with the highest efficiency and capacity of that company worldwide.
This is because the liquid sugar generated by Sucroliq is directly integrated into the production line of the companies that buy its product, as is the case of Danone in Irapuato.
Although Sucroliq already had plants in Amecameca and Monterrey, the one in Irapuato was fully automated two years ago.
“It is the most modern of its kind in the world, with a very high level of automation and control of all the stages of the process,” he underlined.