IC Filling Systems pioneers remote installation of filling equipment

In this period of uncertain international travelling connections, quarantine and logistics disruption due to Covid-19, IC Filling Systems is breaking new ground by fine tuning a VR (virtual reality) approach to the installation of bottling and canning equipment.

The case in hand is the one of Cerveceria Fuggle of Bogota, Colombia.

Unable to send over our installations specialists to work on site in Colombia, we remotely installed the equipment and put it into production with the assistance of the local client’s engineers.

Remote Installation setup

The customer positioned all the machines and connected them to power and supplies guided by our checklist. The line is based on the successful Hybrid filler 661 EPV bottling and canning Monoblock (see layout here).

Once photos were sent of the completion of the preliminary phase, we proceeded with the start up and commissioning. Given the timezone difference, personnel at Fuggle worked from 7am till 3pm, while the Italian support team was working from 1pm till 10pm.

First we connected the PLC of the machine via internet to our service console in our factory in Incisa in Italy — this allowed our service manager to view and control their PLC on a remote screen, as if he was in front of the machine in person.

We then organised a Microsoft Teams conference call, with one engineer holding the camera, and the others working around the instructions from the factory.

• After only 4 days setting up and configuring, the first 2000 glass bottles full of beer were leaving Fuggle Brewery.

This week, we will complete the installation by starting up the change over of the machine to a canning operation, and giving general maintenance instructions to the personnel of Fuggle Cerveceria.

Our 661 EPV Hybrid is unique in being able to fill both bottles and cans on the same machine, and the remote PLC control allows for initial set-up and troubleshooting across the globe.

For more information on how we can assist you in your bottling and canning projects anywhere in the world, please contact us.