Saving energy and valuable resources with Energy and Media Reporting

The world is changing – and so is industry

Sustainability is the great issue of our time. Today, climate protection is regarded as the biggest challenge facing humankind. The climate is changing, our planet’s energy resources are becoming increasingly scarce, and society will inevitably have to change, too. To make sure all people have a fair chance of a future on a planet worth living on, it is absolutely essential that we transform every facet of our daily lives. Besides political decisions and people’s shift in consumption patterns, corporate commitment is a further key factor here. The beverage and liquid-food industries, in particular, bear special responsibility for our natural environment, given their global value chains and their considerable consumption of resources. They do, however, also hold important levers for creating a shift, for making a difference. And Krones is committed to doing its part here.

Making processes more sustainable

Energy and Media Reporting is one of the solutions in Krones‘ digital-product portfolio, which offers one such lever for assisting our customers – and ideally the entire sector – in implementing sustainable filling and packaging processes. Saving water and energy, reducing CO₂ emissions: In view of the ongoing climate change and rising prices for energy, specific solutions for tackling these issues are now more urgently needed than ever before, not only for Krones itself but also for our customers. Liaising closely with the sustainability experts at Krones, the groupwide Krones.digital community has developed a service for monitoring, visualising and analysing energy and media data.

We have created a simple tool for visualising all relevant data, including the line’s energy and media consumption, thus opening up optimisation possibilities, i.e. for reducing consumption levels in the entire filling and packaging line. Martina BirkHead of Sustainability

Keeping a close eye on consumption – possible at any time online

Users can access the relevant data, which are retrieved from the machine at regular intervals, anytime, anywhere: on their desktop computer or on mobile devices. “We hope to help our customers meet their sustainability and cost-cutting targets by breaking down barriers and making it easier to use such increasingly important data,” explains Martina Birk. And Dominik Buchfelder, Head of Plant Applications at Krones.digital, adds: “As the name implies, Energy and Media Reporting help to incorporate machine data into our customers’ business environment.” This solution allows consumption data to be viewed in a variety of contexts. The easy-read display on the dashboard – the energy and media monitor – is instrumental in swiftly identifying any potential areas for optimisation.

How are the data measured? A set of meters (including temperature or pressure sensors and flow meters, for example) is installed along the line. The software solution aggregates, links and visualises the data measured. Preconfigured KPIs give customers a fast overview of consumption levels and help them contextualise and interpret the relevant data. Various reports are available, enabling users to analyse a filling and packaging line‘s energy and media consumption figures in detail. These provide information on how much water a machine consumes in a certain period of time, for example, or how much CO₂ is used on average for each bottle leaving the line. The standard version of Energy and Media Reporting currently includes ten different universally applicable standard reports. But these can be slightly extended as required and matched to specific customer needs.

Reducing manual work, gaining fresh insights

Krones used to measure consumption data even before the Energy and Media Reporting software was developed. So what’s new about this solution? Since the data collected are displayed in conjunction with other details like energy classes and product information, they can be automatically correlated, thereby increasing the information value. Whereas a contextualised analysis used to involve a lot of manual work, the use of Energy and Media Reporting means all that’s needed now is a quick look at the IIoT platform.

The big advantage is that the software renders the data fully comparable. With very little time or effort, users get new insights into their line, which form the basis for identifying weak points and improving processes. Krones‘ sustainability-consultancy team provide customers with both active support and sound advice, helping them to interpret the visualised data correctly and to selectively use them for optimisation. The content and visualisation of the energy and media data are based on the know-how of these expert consultants who assist customers in taking informed data-based decisions and seeing their sustainability targets right through to fulfilment.

But it is not only our customers – beverage producers and other players in the beverage and liquid-food industries – who profit from Energy and Media Reporting. Our own development team benefit as well, in that they use the data as the basis for specific further machine optimisation. In this way, the solution supports Krones in reaching its own ambitious climate targets and continuously improving the machines‘ sustainability performance, which has long been an important concern to the group. The enviro sustainability programme launched in 2008 has a good track record of reducing emissions and, thanks to new digital technologies, is getting ever closer to its goal of integrating sustainability into all stages of the value chain.

SAP technology meets sectoral expertise

The Energy and Media Reporting software is based on SAP technology and essentially comprises cloud-based components. The SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) is an integrated cloud platform which can be used not least to link up a very wide range of data sources. The SAP Datasphere acts as the central data warehouse where data from lower-level systems are stored, aggregated and edited so that they can be used in our reporting tool. Another important constituent of our solution is the SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), which is the key analytical tool for the customers.

Smooth integration of these services provides the optimum basis for Krones to create added value for its customers in the beverage and liquid-food industries. It is precisely this aspect that Dominik Buchfelder sees as the great potential offered by cooperating with SAP: “Combined with our digital services and our sectoral know-how, that makes for a highly effective alliance. Merging our two company’s skills, expertise and technologies enables us to come up with even better solutions in a market that is strongly veering towards the cloud.”

SAP is pulling in the same direction as Krones not only as far as technologies and customer focus are concerned, but also in regard to sustainability, which ranks among the top priorities of both companies. That was the crucial reason why Krones and SAP have extended their partnership over the past few years. Whereas it used to be restricted mainly to integrating SAP applications, today it focuses on developing and engineering SAP subscription products like Energy and Media Reporting. 

Just a beginning

Energy and media reporting is currently being tested for certain pilot customers. At the same time, a team is working on extending the functionality of Energy and Media Reporting. The aim here is the visualisation not only of machine consumption levels but also of the energy and media data of entire factories in order to take full advantage of the solution’s high-performance data-analysis functions and the concomitant potential for savings. The broader the scope of the solution and the number of customers who analyse and optimise their consumption figures with it, the greater the contribution that Krones can make towards creating more sustainable filling and packaging processes.