Platform for the food and beverage industry
Kemin Animal Nutrition & Health not only develops and manufactures nutritional supplements and additives for animal nutrition, but also provides its customers with additional support and services. For example, Kemin Application Solutions designs systems that ensure products can be used accurately and efficiently. One example is a dispensing system equipped with an Ewon Flexy 205 from HMS Networks. This M2M router and data gateway forms the basis of the KEMINCONNECT™ application management platform and collects data, which can be used to analyze the operation of a plant. To connect the plants to the customer's factory network, Anybus X-Gateways protocol inverters are deployed.
To provide animals with optimal and quality nutrition, animal feed manufacturers worldwide turn to the nutritional supplements and additives of American family-owned company Kemin. "With more than 3,000 employees, production facilities in ten countries and representation in 120 countries on all continents, we have become a true global player in just over sixty years. Kemin Herentals is the headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. We have our own production and an extensive R&D department, which together with colleagues abroad is working daily on the optimization of our existing products and the development of new solutions that benefit the health of animals and, ultimately, humans," says Kemin Application Solutions Manager Peter Follon. "This is why we also support our customers in their production processes. Our Technical Service Team helps with the implementation of systems and at Kemin Applications Solutions we develop systems together with the customer to apply the products accurately and efficiently. I am thinking, for example, of a dosing system for our supplements and additives equipped with the KEMINCONNECT™ platform, based on products from HMS Networks."
KEMINCONNECT™ is a proprietary, innovative digital application management platform. It is tailor-made for customers and transforms system data into clear dashboards. This gives the customer greater insight into the operation of the system, allowing them to make better and informed decisions to optimize the process. "We use the Ewon Flexy 205, a modular industrial M2M router and data gateway from HMS Networks. That collects data from the plant, giving us a clear picture of the status of the system and any problems at any time," explains KEMINCONNECT™ Team Lead Peter Eraly. "This allows our technical staff to respond more quickly and efficiently. After all, customers are helped remotely, avoiding unnecessary travel. Only if it appears that on-site intervention is necessary is an on-site visit provided. Furthermore, the customer himself also gets a better view of the production process based on real-time data, allowing him to analyze and adjust himself if necessary to make installations perform even better." Bram Baetens, sales engineer at Bintz Technics, responsible for the distribution of HMS products in Belgium and Luxembourg, adds: "HMS Networks is a market leader in providing solutions for industrial information and communication technology (Industrial ICT). The Ewon Flexy provides users with easy and fully secure remote access to machines and plants via the Internet. This router and data gateway supports all common IIoT protocols (MQTT, OPC UA ...) and can connect to cloud environments such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon web services."
For Kemin Application Solutions, the quality of the products was important, but also HMS Networks' efforts in terms of system security, an aspect that cannot be underestimated in times of frequent cybercrime. Moreover, Ewon products are available worldwide, which means that all of Kemin's business units can now work with the same technology. "We have also been working with Bintz Technics for at least 25 years and have already completed several projects. They listen to our needs and come up with an appropriate solution. If we have questions, they have a solution - themselves or with the support of the engineers at HMS. Everything is installed correctly and we can count on continued service," concluded Follon and Eraly. "In addition to the Ewon Flexy 205 routers, we at Kemin also use HMS' Anybus X-Gateways to connect the installations to the customer's existing factory network. The X-Gateways are an extremely flexible solution because they support a wide range of industrial protocols (PROFINET, PROFIBUS, Ethernet/IP, Modbus TCP/RTU ...). Moreover, no programming is required for configuration."
