The filling section is modernized and humanized 

After the storage capacities for base stock and finished blends had been expanded, it was time to create a central filling section. Until then, the filling, packaging and loading had been carried out at a wide variety of locations in the plant, which was certainly due to the historical development and the rapid growth of the previous few years.

In 2016, the planning of the central filling section began. It is located in the heart of the plant: in halls 10 and 12. The first thing to be done here was to create a peripheral infrastructure to unite halls 10 and 12 to form one large connected space. This project was divided into two phases. The first phase was named “end-of-line” and had the goal of turning the production flow direction in the plant towards the Shipping department. The aim was to also make it possible to convey the pallets from the filling lines out of the hall to the forklift drivers for removal. In addition, the production processes were also to be humanized. By having the physically heavy operations performed by machines, the work of the colleagues at the machines is made much easier. For example, the packing of containers into carton boxes was replaced by modern case packers. Moreover, the heavy packing of the boxes onto pallets was handled by five robots. This gave the colleagues more time to carry out the necessary quality controls, to adjust the machine performance correctly and to feed the plants with the necessary base stock, auxiliary materials and operating supplies. Camera monitoring and traceability were implemented for additional quality assurance. This traceability is achieved by serializing the individual packs, boxes and pallets. As a result, we are now in a position to check an individual container afterwards, to see when and where it was filled. This sub-project was successfully completed in 2017.

Now it was time for the second project phase. Here, the existing filling lines of 2018 were largely standardized. Two filling lines were installed in hall 12, which are capable of filling containers from 0.5 l to 1 l. Furthermore, two modern drum filling plants were purchased as pallet fillers. The pallet filler has the advantage that drums no longer need be heaved onto the pallets after filling. Instead, the drums are placed empty on the pallets and are then transported to the filler by means of a conveyor system, after which they are then transferred ready-filled to the Shipping department via the “end-of-line” section. Three more filling lines were installed in hall 10; these can fill containers from 0.5 l to 5 l. The installation of an additional fourth line, which can even fill 20-liter containers, was completely new. The ability to fill almost all formats and container sizes on almost all lines offers us maximum flexibility today. We are therefore well prepared for future growth in this area as well.

The raw materials tank farm and oil production facilities are restructured, modernized and automated

As the last major project, the oil blending facility and the tank farms 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4 are currently being restructured, modernized, automated and extended by an in-line blender. Since 2012, we have been able to store large quantities of base oils in our external raw materials tank farm at Saarlouis industrial port. Now we needed a solution that would allow us to stockpile more additives. Additives have to be stored hot, as they are very viscous (> 40,000 mm2/s at 20 °C) and otherwise not pumpable. Up to this point, however, we only had 16 insulated and heated additive tanks with a total capacity of 443,000 l. To make matters worse, 14 of these 16 tanks had a capacity of only 25 m3. The challenge is that the additives, which are delivered in tank trucks, have to arrive just in time. A tank truck load is usually also 25 m3. This means that the tanks must be empty at the time of delivery, which is difficult to plan ahead, because additives usually have to be ordered up to 4 weeks in advance. This makes it difficult to hit the exact spot. There is also the risk that a tank truck is no longer available and the additives cannot be delivered on time. This inevitably leads to delivery bottlenecks or production downtimes as sales increase. So the storage capacity of the additives had to be increased. The 100 m3 tanks in tank farm 10.3 were previously only filled with the base oils. However, this size of the tanks was no longer required, as our large tank farm is located 5 km away. This gave rise to the idea of converting the 100 m3 tanks into additive tanks and to call off the base oils from the large tank farm only “just in time”, so to speak. In addition, another eight tanks in tank farm 10.2 were prefitted as additive tanks in order to be able to store the growing variety of additives. After completion of the project, we will be able to store additives in 31 tanks with a total volume of 1.4 million liters. This means that, assuming a 30% additive content in the lubricant, we can produce approx. 4,130 t of lubricants. With a targeted annual production of 120,000 t, this corresponds to an inventory coverage of almost 8 to 9 working days. By expanding our blending capacities and assembling an in-line blender, we will be able to produce oil batches of unlimited size in future. The restriction imposed by the volume of a mixing unit will no longer apply. This unit will produce batches of up to 100,000 l, which will then be stored directly in our central formulation tank farm 10.6. The proportion of formulations produced by the in-line blender is approx. 50-60% of the total production quantity. The freed-up capacities of the four large blending plants (16,000-20,000 l) and the five small blending plants (3,000-5,000 l) are used to produce the technically more complicated and time-consuming special oils. Here, a highly modern control system is used, as for tank farm 10.6. This system is fed with the blending instructions or formulations required by our Research & Development department and is executed automatically by the control system. All the necessary quality data that are used during the manufacturing process are recorded and documented. For example, it will no longer be possible in future for a colleague to accidentally open the wrong raw material tank. The pig lines used to connect the raw material tanks with the blending tanks prevent any cross-contamination and thus reduce the correction of mixing preparations to a minimum. In total, we can then store 25 different additives and 33 different base oils. Another eight base oil tanks have been set up as additive tanks. The capacity of the in-line blender is 30 m3/h, so we can produce 100,000 l of oil in just over three hours.

This manufacturing approach is thus three times faster than the conventional mixing vessel process.

 Botom line: FULL PRODUCTION AHEAD!

Meguin is now able to produce some 480 t of oil per day. Five small mixers, four large mixers and an in-line blender are available for this purpose. The finished blends produced here can be stored temporarily in 62 formulation tanks with a total storage capacity of 4.8 million l. From these tanks, the eight filling lines are fed with the required oils via a piggable matrix distribution system. The filling lines can process the great variety of our product portfolio, comprising approx. 3,500 articles, in three shifts. At 80,000 tons per year, this corresponds to 26 million containers or 104,000 containers per day. Extrapolated to a production volume of 120,000 t/a, this corresponds to 37 million containers per year or 148,000 containers per day. The great advantage of our production process lies in the high degree of flexibility. We are able to produce up to 70 different products in a single day. We achieve this through our short set-up times and our highly motivated colleagues – starting with the machine operator, shift supervisor, setter, automation technician and master craftsman, right up to the entire production management team. All work is done “hand in glove” and everything is organized down to the last detail. From a production point of view, nothing stands in the way of further growth!