Schneider Weisse automates packing operations with Profipack and Motoman robots

Export business calls for the highest level of flexibility

With the traditional art of brewing, Schneider Weisse G. Schneider & Sohn GmbH has secured a dominant position on the international market. Its recipe for success: the in-part centuries-old brewing methods used by the medium-sized wheat beer brewery are being augmented in all areas by state-of-the-art automation solutions. In the field of logistics, a flexible packing system employing three Yaskawa Motoman robots has now been implemented by packing system specialist Profipack Verpackungsmaschinen GmbH.

Schneider Weisse G. Schneider & Sohn GmbH (founded in 1872), with company headquarters in Munich and a brewery in Kelheim, has been making “craft beer” for many years now, since even before this buzzword even existed. And still today, its top-fermented beer specialties are fermented in open vats, from which the master brewers carefully skim off the yeast on a daily basis and, according to tradition, by hand. The young beer likewise reaches its final maturity in the traditional way in the bottle or barrel, instead of closed steel tanks.

The convincing taste of the final product is apt justification for the complex technical processes for production and bottling. “We are constantly hovering at the interface between magic and high-tech,” Josef Lechner, Chief Brewer at Schneider Weisse, describes the situation. As Technical Manager of the Kelheim Brewery, Lechner is responsible for both, i.e. not only for the “magic” of brewing, but also for the required equipment. That also means installing a system that corresponds to the state of the art.