The world-famous products with the bear logo are made at the Nestle plant at Biessenhofen in the rural Allgäu region of Southern Germany. INTERBUS is one of the team. It is an important component in the automation concept.
In condensed milk production, the treated milk is pumped into temporary storage tanks via so-called product nodes after the first stages of processing. A product node consists of about 70 check valves which switch through individual pathways to the tanks. The valves are opened and closed pneumatically using pilot valves.

Filled bottles on their
way from the filling station
to the sterilizer

INTERBUS output modules control the pilot valves from local switchboxes and the pilot valves actuate the check valves using compressed air. Proximity switches transfer the valve status to the INTERBUS input modules and signal the information to the central PLC. There, it is essential for the open product pathway to be checked since cleaning processes may be taking place in parallel and the product must not come into contact with the cleaning fluid.

The glass containers are transported by conveyor tables and belts to the shuttle for sterilization. This moves the pallets to the sterilizers. There was no question of using a conventional, parallel cabling concept due to the large distances involved and the drag chains for the shuttle. In particular, it was necessary to consider the cabling in the drag chain which has to be replaced after a specific time interval or degree of stress. Complicated maintenance work, long lengths of cable and the attendant cable routes would have taken up a correspondingly long time and involved a high degree of financial expenditure.

The check valves form what is
referred to as the product
node where the various products
find their way into the
different containers