Sustainable and efficient: Under the group’s replacement programme, Krones Lifecycle Service (LCS) directly replaces defective assemblies or those in need of overhaul with existing, fully reconditioned components. That ensures responsible and efficient use of resources – meaning the individual constituents of the machine parts – and brings the circular economy to the factory floor.
The replacement programme works as follows: First the assembly in need of repair is removed from the line and sent to one of Krones’ production facilities for an overhaul. The ingenious bit here is that under the programme the customer buys an equivalent, fully reconditioned assembly from Krones’ stocks, which a service technician directly installs in the machine on site, using the plug-and-play model. That offers the huge advantage of reducing machine downtimes and minimising production losses. What’s more, customers are not tied to an on-site overhaul but can pick a time for assembly replacement that fits in with their production operations, thus ensuring a high level of flexibility.
About ten assemblies from filling, labelling and inspection technology are at present suitable for the replacement programme – and the company is continually scaling up the options available. For all other components, either an overhaul of the customer’s assembly in the Krones plant followed by its re-installation in the original machine or an on-site overhaul directly at the customer’s facility makes perfect sense. The important thing in all three cases is this: Carrying out preventive maintenance on assemblies with replacements installed in their place ensures the line’s technical availability in the long term and minimises the risk of unplanned standstills.
The replacement programme is a worthwhile option for any beverage company, not least in financial terms as the cost of overhauls are usually substantially lower than the cost of an equivalent new component – with customers able to save up to 50 per cent with a replacement, depending on the product in question. The programme also ensures that spare parts, even for relatively old machines can still be obtained because the components are kept in a loop, so they are always available as fully reconditioned parts.
Another important benefit of the replacement programme is that it actively supports the circular-economy concept. This is because once it has been removed from the customer’s machine, the component in need of overhaul is sent to Krones where it is gutted, cleaned, measured and repaired. After it has passed a quality test, it can be stored in our warehouse as a fully reconditioned assembly and is now once again available for the next replacement job for another customer – thus closing the loop.
The replacement programme fully aligns with the company’s vision as reconditioning components instead of simply throwing them away saves valuable material resources. Together with its customers, Krones makes a crucial contribution towards designing and implementing production processes geared to overall sustainability. For more visit krones.com
