Cooperation: Showroom in the technical center offers control room solutions for coffee roasting plants

According to a legend, it was shepherds of the kingdom of Kaffa in what is now Ethiopia who noticed that after eating the red fruit of a bush with white flowers, part of their herd of goats jumped around cheerfully until late at night, while the other animals were tired. Already in the 9th century, these shepherds are said to have been the first to roast the seed of the coffee cherry and thus extract the incomparable coffee aroma from it.

With roasting plants to the world market leader

Current processes have little in common with heating the green bean over an open fire. Today the most modern equipment takes over the roasting process. The highest demands are made in terms of economy, quality, service life and availability. As world market leader in the field of machine and plant construction for the coffee and food industry, PROBAT has stood for groundbreaking solutions in all aspects of coffee processing for more than 150 years. An interesting fact in passing: the coffee for two out of three cups consumed worldwide comes from a PROBAT roaster.

Coffee producers from all over the world are guests here

Coffee manufacturers from all over the world come to Emmerich on the Lower Rhine to find out about innovative production techniques to modernize their own plants. This is where a new control room comes into play. The team around Sebastian Kersten, head of the sales department IT and automation, supported by the control room professionals from JST – Jungmann Systemtechnik^®. A Control room showroom especially for coffee producers.

Antiquated control rooms need an upgrade

“The aim is to replace the partially antiquated control rooms within the industry with modern systems that not only allow ergonomic working, but in particular more efficient working in terms of safety and production capacity utilization,” says Sebastian Kersten, explaining the considerations behind this project. His experiences in the roasting plants of PROBAT customers have shown: Although production control rooms can be found everywhere, most of them date back to the 80s or 90s and require urgent upgrades. The best example: a customer where each machine was assigned its own workstation; with 17 PCs in just one control room.

JST Installation opens doors to modern high-tech world

“We want to show our partners the possibilities offered by the use of state-of-the-art control room technology in conjunction with our control solutions,” says Sebastian Kersten. In the new high-tech world created by the installation of the JST specialists, the international public will therefore not only get to know advanced machines, but especially their effective control.

New perspectives in control and monitoring

In addition to a large screen wall with business displays, which are ideally suited for overviews in BigPicture format thanks to their ultra-narrow frames, a flexible and proactive control with the JST MultiConsoling^®. In combination with the AlarmLight and PixelDetection^® monitoring software, this opens up completely new perspectives in control room technology.

Visitors take the machine control in their hands

Sebastian Kersten: “Here in the Demo Center we have on the one hand the possibility to call up different systems simply by pressing a button, so that the customer can take the mouse and thus the machine control into his own hands. On the other hand, we can also demonstrate from a security perspective what modern monitoring software is capable of”. The PixelDetection^® software, which permanently monitors running applications in the background, provides visual and acoustic signals in the event of an alarm. Reaction times and thus possible downtimes are drastically reduced.

State of the art: Consider ergonomics

In addition to trend-setting technology, the PROBAT team also wants to convey the advantages of ergonomic control room furniture to its showroom visitors – with operator consoles and chairs from the Jungmann portfolio. “When we talk about state of the art today, it is absolutely necessary to think about modern workplaces,” says Sebastian Kersten, summarizing the intention of the project team.

Control room simulator was the model

The decision to commission JST with the installation of the new showroom in the technical center and also to recommend this step to our own customers has good reasons, by the way: Together with his colleague Sebastian Fichthorn (Head of Software Engineering & IT at PROBAT), Sales Manager Kersten has, so to speak, set the “great example”, the JST control room simulator in Buxtehude near Hamburg.
“We really enjoyed that. We knew right away that we would like something like that, too. In addition, JST’s references are really remarkable, and the contact with consultants Timo Bredehöft and Dirk Lüders also convinced us.“

"That's what I call good project management."

At this point there is not only praise for the Jungmann hard- and software, but also for the JST Project team: „The feedback of our colleagues on the products is terrific. And the implementation was exemplary – there was a lot of movement behind it, it was structured, the deadlines were met. That’s what I call good project management.”