Process engineering group, GEA, will showcase cutting-edge automation and sensor-based technologies for the dairy industry at this year’s EuroTier (November 15 – 18, 2016, Hanover, Germany). They will empower customers to produce milk safely and increase animal health, while optimizing revenues and milk quality – all while coping with today’s challenging market environment. GEA’s product solutions are smartly linking farm, barn, herd and health management.

Patented innovation: sensor technology identifies cases of suspected mastitis during milking

With CMIQ monitoring, GEA is presenting the world’s first real-time system for effective early detection of mastitis at the quarter level. The CMIQ sensor records the milk composition of each individual quarter during the overall milking process. It analyzes and compares existing data on short notice, so any necessary action can start right after milking, from the automatic selection of infected or at-risk animals and treatment and progress checks during lactation periods, through to animal management adjustments. As a result, the CMIQ sensor technology leads to verifiably improved herd health with less work. GEA is launching the system for its automated milking systems DairyProQ and Monobox in 2017.

GEA DairyNet: Successful partnership between GEA and 365FarmNet bears new fruit

GEA DairyNet offers dairies a web-based herd management system which facilitates the division of the herd into specific feeding groups. It is a key element in the 365FarmNet platform. Thanks to this, farmers can document, evaluate and manage cattle rearing processes in combination with crop management for the first time. Combining the expertise of the individual partners GEA, fodjan and 365FarmNet within a new “365Feeding” concept gives farmers new ways to best adjust feeding to the animals’ performance potential. Consequently, the farmer boosts animal health while also improving herd performance.

Another mobile software has been developed with the aim of further optimizing the overview of all livestock farming and crop management processes: the 365ActiveBox with the 365Time app. The boxes with SmartSensor technology send data directly to the farmer's smartphone. By these simple means, working and machine times can be recorded, temperatures displayed and monitored, and animal weighing data transmitted to the dairy farmer who can intervene at any stage.

Automated milking systems from GEA continue to make headway

GEA DairyProQ, the automated and modular milking rotary parlor, is already in operation with more than 500 milking stalls following successful pilot projects. It has now entered serial production. Good news: GEA is offering its customers an extended warranty of up to five years for the DairyProQ system. With a new improved design, the milking stall module enables fast service.

The youngest member in the automation range, the GEA Monobox, has also been very well received on the market. Since March 2016 more than 200 individual boxes have already been sold in 15 countries. Unlike other products on the market, the GEA Monobox handles all milking-related processes in one attachment operation. It also includes the verifiably safe Apollo system for automatic dipping within the teat cup.

GEA Apollo system approved by leading milk processing companies

The Apollo system, a technology specially developed by GEA to improve udder health and prevent mastitis, ensures that automated dipping and backflushing processes run with maximum reliability and produce high quality milk in both automated and conventional parlours. Careful dipping and intermediate disinfection of the milking cluster prevent the transmission of mastitis pathogens, thereby minimizing the spread of infection. Independent testing confirmed complete product safety. Based on these tests, GEA was granted exclusive sales authorization in certain countries by leading milk processing companies, including Arla Foods and the Dutch Dairy Association (NZO).

GEA MixedFeeder WIC: How smart are automatic feeding systems?

Since July 2016, GEA’s product developers have been adding the control software WIC (Wireless Integrated Control) to the tried-and-tested GEA MixFeeder. The WIC system directly connects raw feed stores and silos and controls each individual step of the process fully automatically: from the precise weighing and mixing of the feed components in accordance with set feeding plans and specifications, to time-controlled group feeding. The MixFeeder with WIC ensures that each group of animals receives the individual feed blend it needs, tailored to its performance level. The WIC software can be controlled via PC or touch panel.

GEA enhances automated barn equipment: FRone

With GEA FRone, a robot pushes the feed in front of the feed fences instead of the farmer – saving his precious time. This ensures that cows always have access to fresh feed, regardless of the order in which they feed. As a result, they eat more often and remain healthy and productive. Besides reducing the workload, the continuous pushing means less food is wasted and productivity is increased.

GEA SRone+ manure scraper is an advanced version of SRone

GEA has recently launched the new manure scraper SRone+ specially designed for more complex stall layouts and alleys of up to 12,000 square metres. Besides many other special functions, the SRone+ features high-tech equipment with a gyroscope, extensive RFID/TAG sensor technology and semi-rigid PUR wheels. SRone+ is a premium version of the tried-and-tested basic unit, SRone, for simpler stall layouts, and which starts without any programming.

Find out more at our EuroTier press conference on Tuesday, November 15, 2016, at 11:00 a.m. in Hall 13/14 of the Hanover Trade Fair Convention Centre.

With GEA PerformancePlus GEA is offering its customers service level options that extend way beyond routine preventive maintenance and complement customer Industry 4.0 strategic efforts.

By combining modern condition monitoring technologies with its industry expertise, GEA provides its customers monitoring services, comprehensive analysis reports and reliable optimization recommendations. In turn, GEA customers receive valuable information to make business decisions easier and addressing challenges they face to achieve their specific performance-related goals. GEA PerformancePlus creates transparency about the current health status of the equipment, increases its availability, ensures optimum productivity, brings efficiency optimization potential to light and enables a sustainable equipment utilization. GEA PerformancePlus enables a speedy evaluation of the opportunities and risks of changing production requirements, orders can be assessed and economically scheduled in turn leading to higher productivity for GEA customers.

GEA PerformancePlus will initially be available for GEA separators; on the mid-term it will be extended to other GEA product groups.

GEA was awarded for best manufacturing technology and equipment at the CPhI Pharma Awards, which took place this week during the leading trade fair CPhI Worldwide in Barcelona, Spain. As a frontrunner in the design and supply of state of the art manufacturing solutions for both solid and liquid dosage forms, GEA won the Award “Excellence in Pharma: Manufacturing Technology and Equipment” for their ConsiGma™ continuous processing platform.

The ConsiGma™ continuous tableting line is a multipurpose platform that has been designed to transfer powder into coated tablets in development, pilot, clinical and production facilities in a single compact unit. The system can perform dosing and mixing of raw materials, wet or dry granulation, drying, tableting, coating and quality control, all in one integrated solution.

“For us, continuous manufacturing (CM) is fundamental to the future of the pharmaceutical industry, CM represents an exciting step forward in drug production,” said Marcus Michel, Executive Vice President of GEA’s Pharma business. “That ConsiGma™ has been recognized by a panel of industry peers reflects and reinforces GEA’s philosophy of implementing CM systems, particularly for high value products. We thank the judges for their considered appraisal of our technology, which is important for both our company and our customers, and the team behind our ConsiGma™ portfolio. We feel that CPhI is an excellent environment to present our advanced manufacturing solutions and enhance our clients’ ability to develop and create high quality products,” he added.

“To receive this award amongst a number of very strong contenders is an incredible result and underpins the industry trend of implementing CM solutions. It’s a milestone in the production of OSDs (Oral Solid Dosage) and truly represents the future of pharma manufacturing,” concluded Marcus Michel.

It’s thanks to GEA’s ConsiGma™ that, in 2015, Vertex Pharmaceuticals became the first pharma company to receive FDA approval for a therapeutic that was both developed and commercially manufactured using a CM platform. And GEA’s ConsiGma™ 25 unit forms the basis of a groundbreaking – also award-winning – collaboration between Pfizer, GSK and G-CON to develop the next generation of portable, continuous, miniature and modular (PCMM) solutions for pharma production. These on-demand mini-factories can be set up to manufacture medicines at any production scale, anywhere in the world where basic facilities are available. GEA is convinced that ConsiGma™ will revolutionize the way that tablets are produced.

Based on preliminary figures for September 2016, GEA expects for Q3 2016 sales around EUR 1,100 million (last year EUR 1,107 million, -1.8% organic change – i.e. adjusted for currency and acquisition effects – against Q3 2015), order intake around EUR 1,084 million (last year EUR 1,068 million, 0.3% organic change against Q3 2015) and operating EBITDA* around EUR 113 million (last year EUR 144 million).

Influencing factors for sales

Business Area Solutions:

Slower execution mainly of dairy processing projects – in large parts customer induced – and decline in cooling solutions for the oil and gas industry leading to an approx. 4.5% organic decline

Business Area Equipment:

Limited overall growth in light of an organic decline of approx. 8% in the dairy farming business

Influencing factors for order intake

Only slight organic growth due to delays in the placement of larger dairy processing orders which were expected for Q3 2016, as well as a continuing investment-restraint in the dairy farming and oil and gas industries.

Influencing factors EBITDA

Business Area Solutions:

Cost overruns in a couple of large projects including additional provisions for remaining risks from these; adverse operating leverage effect from approx. 4.5% organic sales decline of the entire business area in Q3 2016 compared to previous year

Business Area Equipment:

Adverse operating leverage effect from 8% organic sales decline in the dairy farming business during Q3 2016 compared to previous year

The figures for September revealed that adverse impacts for the group had accrued to such an extent that further potentials to fully mitigate these impacts until year’s end by countermeasures such as additional saving initiatives seemed exhausted. While all other businesses are on track, they cannot mitigate the above mentioned adverse effects any more.

As a consequence, GEA adjusts its guidance for the financial year 2016 with assumptions unchanged as follows:

Moderate sales decline against prior year (previously: moderate increase)An operating EBITDA* of around EUR 570 million including approx. EUR 10 million from the acquisition Imaforni (previously: guided range between EUR 645 million and EUR 715 million without Imaforni)Operating cash flow driver margin** around 10% (previously: 10.0-11.0%)

The mid-term financial targets given at the occasion of the Capital Markets Day at the beginning of October 2016 are confirmed in all aspects (see CMD 2016 presentation p. 98; accessible at www.gea.com).

GEA’s Q3 results will be published on 28 October 2016.

* operating EBITDA is defined in GEA’s half-yearly financial report 2016, p. 42

** operating cash flow driver margin is defined in GEA’s half-yearly financial report 2016, p. 3, FN 2

GEA’s half-yearly financial report 2016 is accessible at gea.com.

The notification has been published on October 19, 2016, at 11.52pm.