At the heart of the system at Endress+Hauser 's Maulburg plant are three massive tanks that hold between 2,000 and 26,000 liters of oil. Two dozen measuring devices from the measurement technology company with different measuring principles are installed on the tanks. They communicate with the Plant Pax control system from Rockwell Automation. The aim is to provide everyone in the test center with concrete information and diagnoses about the behavior of the tank contents at a glance.

Customer training and product validation

The original idea of jointly equipping the tank system came from training centers that Endress+Hauser established in recent years with the support of Rockwell Automation - so-called 'Process Training Units'. At ten locations in the USA, Colombia, China and Canada, sales representatives and product managers from both companies train their customers in various measuring principles and specific applications. Specifically, the curriculum includes installation training, simulations under real conditions, diagnostic processes and comparisons of different technologies.

The first joint test center in Europe, with an investment volume of several hundred thousand euros, now aims to go a few steps further and establish new standards: It is located in the middle of the Endress+Hauser production site for level and pressure measurement technology and places a particular focus on product validation. The focus is on research and development in order to develop new products in line with customer requirements under real application and environmental conditions at an early stage. "All of our products have to pass the validation center and prove that they create sustainable added value for customers. They are subjected to extreme endurance tests," emphasizes Gerd Gritsch, Head of Quality Management at Endress+Hauser in Maulburg.

In addition to research and development, the test center will also be used to train the company's own employees and customers and to provide demonstration lessons for students. Last year, 2,600 external visitors already learned about the tanks and systems at the test facility. Now Rockwell Automation is adding more.