A great success in the Process Automation Industry

Every plant in the Process Automation Industry requires clean and dry air to protect components in machines and increase service life. Air preparation control panels help to achieve this. They improve the service life of your components and systems by reducing machine failures and standstills. Festo South Africa identified this critical need and now offers customized air preparation control panels to customers throughout Africa.

Understanding a customer’s needs is vital as it gives way for an effective customised solution that will suit the precise application and environmental requirements. To this end, the Festo SA Exports Team investigated the needs of customers in the mining sector and based on their findings, devised a solution to customise Air Preparation Control Panels that provide clean and dry instrumentation air, - thus protecting components from acidic and corrosive environments and providing mechanical and physical protection for the service units.

Festo SA has sold and installed over 150 Customized Air Preparation Control panels to various mines in Africa, all in a short period of 2 years. These panels did not only improve the customer’s productivity in the mining sector, but also extended to other process industries such as Water Treatment and Breweries. Although floatation cell plants have emerged as the key application in the mineral sector, many other industries are also realising the benefits of this highly economical solution.

The Festo Customised Air Preparation Panel comes in 3 different models, the selection of which is dependent on the operating environment.

Panel features

• The control panel is offered in 3 panel material constructions: steel, stainless steel and Poly Carbonate (standard).
• Pressure adjustment with the option of being locked by a key or lock pad.
• Shut-off valve which provides maintenance isolation and safety of the air supply to the machine.
• Adjusted pressure which can be visualised via a manometer display installed on the panel.

Benefits of using the Customised Air Preparation Control Panel from Festo SA

• Pre-assembled and ready to install solution.
• Cost effective and high-quality construction.
• Efficient, high flow rates.
• Long life span.
• Low maintenance due to mechanical and physical protection.

Successful installations in many industries

As previously mentioned, the primary objective has been to target industries requiring clean, unlubricated compressed air within their applications. A few of these have included:

• Biopharmaceutical Industry - where stringent health regulations are followed. An example would be where compressed air is used inside packaging areas - i.e. in Eye drop filling stations, where valves exhaust air into the immediate environment.
• Mining Industry - In floatation cell applications where clean, dry compressed air is required.
• Food and Beverage Industry - where compressed air comes into contact with food products and packaging. Examples include aeration blowers (milk) or separating (bakeries). FDA standards must be adhered to in all cases, according to FDA specifications.
• Safety Equipment - where failure of an operation may cause serious or fatal damages.
• Cement Industry – In blast air or air cannon applications.