Felchlin stands for high-quality chocolate products. A highly developed market performance concept that goes far beyond product delivery ensures long-term success together with customers. The company headquarters and production facilities are centrally located in Schwyz, in the heart of Switzerland, in the middle of Europe. With around 140 employees, the company achieves annual sales of approximately CHF 50 million, about half of which is generated through exports.

Automating five conching systems from the 1960s, installing a cross-system process control system, and achieving overall CE conformity was the challenging task. This first required a risk assessment of the system—an activity that is usually carried out by the plant/machine manufacturer. “From practice for practice” is Autexis’ credo. During an on-site visit, the systems were inspected together with customer representatives from engineering and operating staff. Assemblies were analysed; operation and potential risks were discussed and assessed. This resulted in sensible measures to increase safety that were easy to implement and, thanks to the joint, partnership-based development, achieved a high level of acceptance.

Each of the five conches from the 1960s was modernised with an S7-1500 controller. A new cross-system control system was deployed to operate and monitor the processes. The control system is based on WinCC, in line with existing production systems, which were also implemented by Autexis using WinCC.

Autexis has been a long-standing partner of Max Felchlin AG. Our signature is known and appreciated on the customer side. Thanks to the modernised control system, production can now be carried out efficiently, safely, and with higher availability. This enables production orders with individual recipes to be implemented efficiently. This increases customer satisfaction and saves line operators additional effort.