SAGER Retrofit of the plant control system

About the project

The history of the successful Swiss premium brand and the SAGER family are closely linked to the present day. It all began in 1949 in Switzerland, in the Aargau municipality of Dürrenäsch, from where the innovative brothers Herbert and Kurt SAGER shaped the Swiss insulation market. The family business is still an independent and important employer in the region today and a key driving force in the field of insulation.

SAGER wants to continue to be able to produce in an environmentally conscious and economical manner in Switzerland, for Switzerland and neighboring countries in the future. For this reason, the company has decided to make a forward-looking investment with the goal of Industry 4.0 at its Dürrenäsch site. The large-scale project involves several conversion steps, each of which will be implemented during the planned maintenance shutdowns. In a further step, several plant components of the SAGLAN and PIPELANE lines underwent extensive retrofitting. At the same time, the Hylex exhaust gas cleaning system was replaced.

Siemens Switzerland AG and Rey Technology were commissioned to carry out the control retrofit. A tight project conversion plan was drawn up jointly, as the time window for the conversion was limited to just three weeks. During these three weeks, all control cabinets and process plant controls were replaced and integrated into the existing process control system.

A twelve-member team from Rey Technology took on the challenge. One working group focused on replacing the existing control cabinets, while a software team was responsible for developing the process control and visualization systems. Under the leadership of project manager Matthias Pfister, the work was completed on schedule and to the complete satisfaction of SAGER AG.

With this retrofit project, SAGER AG has demonstrated its commitment to Switzerland as a business location and, at the same time, created a modern, economical, and environmentally friendly production facility.

Advantages for the customer

• Minimized downtime thanks to modern, reliable control system
• Faster processes and optimized process control
• Flexibly expandable for new technologies and requirements
• Clearly documented plant management saves time and effort