Electricity and Control March 2024

CONTROL SYSTEMS + AUTOMATION : PRODUCTS + SERVICES

Manufacturing services and solutions

sector as well as, among others, the sugar industry, bottling, brewing and smelting, and agricultural processing spares. With its modern manufacturing facility, plus a full stockholding of es sential spares, Bühler Johannesburg strives to meet its vision of ‘if you can

Bühler Johannesburg, established in 1972, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2022 as part of the Swiss family owned Bühler Group, which itself is 163 years old. In 2004, Bühler Johannesburg moved to its current manufacturing facility and offices in Honeydew, north of Johannesburg, consolidating its presence in the country and as the regional hub for the company’s manufacturing solutions and aftersales services across sub-Saharan Africa. Francois Knoetze, Head of Manufacturing and Logistics, says Bühler Southern Africa has over 220 employees and offers sales and service, project execution, and manufacturing and logistics. It has service stations in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lusaka, and Maputo, offering its clients spare and warehouse parts, as well as roll refluting and die refurbishment services. Manufacturing at the Johannesburg facility ranges from small steel construction to heavy processing equip ment. A major focus is on chain conveyors designed for grain collection points, grain terminals, and processing plants. The chain conveyors are compact and provide a high conveying capacity over long distances due to the premium quality of the drop-forged chain. They also pro vide gentle handling of granular and floury bulk goods. Bühler chain conveyors claim new standards for service life, sanitation, and versatility, with throughputs of up to 1 200 t/h. The manufacturing setup in Johannesburg is an in dependent entity operating as a standalone Bühler busi ness, supplying assemblies for machines and production plants globally. Value-added services include drafting, prototyping, general steel fabrication (with a specialisa tion in mild steel, stainless steel, and aluminium), bend ing, rolling, welding, boiler making, sheet metal work, laser cutting, powder coating and painting, pickling and passivating, and assembly. Notably, Bühler Johannesburg manufactures and ex ports mining equipment. “For example,” says Knoetze, “we assist Brazil with expertise and knowledge because it has a lot of woodworking plants, which use equipment similar to that used in the mining industry.” The compa ny also supplies equipment for the power generation New IO-Link cylinder sensors from ifm monitor two end positions for short-stroke cylinders, keeping both end positions in view. The two hardware outputs can be con figured to each application’s requirements. A high-resolution process value with a detection range of 50 mm enables continuous monitoring plus dig ital transmission via IO-Link. With the teach function and the Bluetooth adapter, the installed sensor can be easily adjusted from outside the machine. Combined functions, such as the stroke counter (switching cycle counter), time monitoring between both T-slot cylinder sensors with IO-Link

imagine it, we can make it’. Knoetze highlights that cus tomisation is the norm, and this is mainly due to the lack of greenfield projects in South Africa, he says. “We often have to work in an existing building and ensure our equipment fits into the established footprint and layout, and that is where much of the customisation comes in. We also carry out equipment replacement, as part of our value-added service offering to our clients,” he says. “From a manufacturing perspective to a group per spective, Bühler Johannesburg is committed to ensuring its clients get the best value, from planning to logistics, and assisting with energy efficiency and optimisation,” Knoetze adds. Where required, Bühler Johannesburg conducts an audit of a client’s production line or process and makes recommendations in terms of either new equipment or possible refurbishment to the latest technology. This is increasingly important as organisations move towards Industry 4.0, where digitisation and automation are key to predictive maintenance and maximum throughput. Knoetze says, “Industry 4.0 is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but is becoming essential. For remote monitor ing, for example, you can be anywhere in the world and check on production quality and output rate. The new generation machines also allow for remote monitoring of bearing temperature as an indicator of any potential problems,” he adds. Looking to the future, Bühler Johannesburg offers merSETA-accredited apprenticeship programmes for boilermakers, fitters and turners, mechatronics, and welding – to ensure a skills pipeline for itself and the wider industry. “We aim to equip the next generation with vocational and practical on-the-job training,” says Knoetze. □ end positions, or device temperature, provide ser vicing assistance and enable maintenance to be carried out as required. In general cylinder sensors are used for position detection of pistons in pneumatic cylinders. They are directly mounted onto the cylinder. The ring magnet attached to the piston is sensed through the housing wall of non-magnetisable material (such as aluminium, brass or stainless steel). They can be fixed to almost any T-slot, C-slot, clean-line, tie rod, integrated profile or trapezoidal slot cylinder.

Bühler Johannesburg operates as a regional hub, providing manufacturing solutions and services to industries across sub-Saharan Africa.

One sensor instead of two: On short-stroke cylinders, one IO-Link cylinder sensor (upper groove) is now sufficient to detect both end positions instead of two conventional sensors (lower groove) as was previously the case.

For more information visit: www.ifm.com

MARCH 2024 Electricity + Control

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