In order to perfectly meet the requirements of the growing clientele as well as the increasing demand of already existing customers in the eastern half of Austria, in 2005, the family owned company Fischer Brot has built a new production facility in the open countryside of Markgrafneusiedl - and this within a record-breaking time. This building does not only stand out because of its architectural modern design but especially thanks to its interior high-tech bakery factory. The entire facility has been furnished with brand new machines and equipment. The technical engineers of the company´s maintenance department requested high demands concerning functioning and quality from the partners supplying the production facility. These demands were based on the experience the engineers gained within their time at the two existing plants in Upper Austria. Concerning automation, all specifications required "Step7" programmable control technology and "Speed7 315-2AG10" CPU´s made by VIPA as central modules.  Due to their own experience, Fischer Brot´s technical engineers are convinced of the overall performance of this VIPA product series which is fully compatible to the word of "Simatic S7", especially regarding rate of efficiency, processing speed and interface diversity and the user friendly scaling resulting from this.

Fischer Brot looks back on 50 years of successful history. What started with a little bakery shop on Linz´s Kapuziner Street in 1958 has meanwhile grown to a large industrial bakery with three production sites daily supplying food retail in the entire of Austria with fresh bread and pastries as well as with different kinds of traditional Austrian specialties. The probably best known product made by Fischer Brot is the "M�hlviertler Schnittbrot", available in almost every trade chain. Expansion shapes the history of the family owned company which is meanwhile managed by the second generation of Fischer´s, the brothers Roland, Alfred and Hubert Fischer. Fischer Brot produces in Upper Austria at their headquarters in Linz, at the factory in Pichling which was built in 2002 and at the most recent production site in Markgrafneusiedl located a few kilometres north-east of Vienna which launched production almost three years ago. "The main reason for establishing the new production site Markgrafneusiedl was the freshness of out products. Our clientele in the metropolitan area of Vienna is continuously increasing. Providing our high quality standards required short routs of transport." says Andreas Ortler, engineer and executive director of technology and data processing at Fischer Brot interviewed by AUTlook. Only six month passed by between the groundbreaking ceremony and the moment when the first bun left the oven. Within this short period of time, they did not only manage to build the production facility but also to install the entire technical equipment. "Of course we were giving it some though how to equip our future production beforehand. Based on our experience we gained within the years working at the other two plants we had some precise ideas especially concerning control technology" Andreas Ortler remembers. At Fischer Brot, we already decided to work with "Simatic S7" technology as a standard when we established the facility in Pichling three years ago - it was therefore determined to be a specification for the new machines in Markgrafneusiedl. "Since Siemens is the absolute market leader within German speaking countries, it was of course not a problem for our production facility suppliers to meet these requirements" Andreas Ortler continues. "However, for me it has always been clear that I would like to apply "Speed7"-CPUs made by VIPA on the hardware side for our installations - concretely the "Speed7 CPU 315". This CPU is 100% compatible to the world of "Simatic S7". However, contrary to the "Simatic S7 315" which is comparable in size, the performance of this CPU is better and if you add up all features which Siemens charges additionally it is also cheaper.   Integrated serially are e.g. a TCP/IP interface and an amply dimensioned memory. In addition to that the "Speed7" CPUs are simply incredibly fast."


The Target is a companywide Standard CPU

Andreas Ortler made his first experience with VIPA CPUs in the course of a building control system project at the headquarters in Linz: "I was looking for a cost-effective but high performance controller with reasonable interfaces and without any restrictions on the choice of CPUs to automate the observation of an refrigerated warehouse - this I found at the manufacturer VIPA". Initially I was a little sceptical whether the promised high performance would really meet my expectations, and especially how the reliability and durability of the PLC would turn out. There are rumors that VIPA CPUs could cause problems - but I made the exact opposite experience. I intensively tested this one "Sample CPU" and next to the observation of the refrigerated warehouse I also realized the control of illumination, heating and lastly the ventilating system by means of this PLC - and up to this day it is still running without a problem.", Andreas Ortler reports. "After on year it was clear for me: This CPU is of top quality, it is extremely efficient and incredibly fast - some of the cycle times it provides even cannot be displayed since they are below 1ms. This means, by the way, that I can even solve positioning tasks using the normal user program without having to program special interrupts! And with VIPA I don´t have to submit to any surcharge policy or restrictions on the choice of CPUs. Most likely to compare is the "Speed7 315" CPU to the expensive "Simatic S7 318" and I wouldn´t even shy away from comparing this CPU to the "Simatic S7 400" as the performance of the "Speed7", except from the communication channels, gets very close to it."
Due to his positive experience Andreas Ortler decided to immediately replace any existing "Simatic S7" CPU that fails with a "Speed7" by VIPA - in fact consequently applying the efficient types of the "Speed7 315" series. "My target is to apply VIPA controllers as a companywide standard. To be honest, for some applications, this high performance CPU is actually extremely - but in any case I have lower expanses and in addition to that I have the advantage that I only have to store one uniformed type of CPU in my spare pooling. And I have plenty reserve capacity which means with this PLC I do not have to worry to eventually meet any limits some day", Andreas Ortler states convinced by his decision.  

Successful Application at the new Plant in Markgrafneusiedl

From industrial mixers via hoisting-, tilting and kneading machines, small-sized pastry machines, oven installations, transport conveyors, packing machines, box wash installations up to the entire building control technology including the refrigerated warehouse - the "Speed7" CPUs made by VIPA are implanted as a standard within all areas of the new production facility in Markgrafneusiedl; 13 different machine and installation distributors were involved within this project. The programming was done via "Step7" by Siemens, visualization and recording of data has carried out applying "WinCC". "The integration of VIPA devices works without a problem since the CPU internally simulates a Siemens CPU within the hardware configuration.", Andreas Ortler reports. "In the beginning I was of course worried whether the Siemens program would really accept the foreign component without any complications. I have therefore intensively tested the compatibility - I came to the conclusion that this really works."  On the realized "WinCC" application the add-on "Webnavigator" is also being applied. This feature enables the maintenance crew in Linz to access the control and communication system in the plant in Markgrafneusiedl at any time via a standard web browser. The VIPA controllers have been executing their tasks for almost three years now and conclusively Andreas Ortler brings his enthusiasm to the point as follows: "The "Speed7" devices run without a problem, the cycle times are outstanding, the compatibility to the World of Siemens products is impeccable - for the time being I cannot think of any better solution, I am very satisfied with the manufacturing company VIPA - also concerning customer´s service."