25 years making PLCs #Pauto

Siemens Electronics Plant in Amberg (EWA) celebrates 25 years as show- case for production automation.

One of the 1000 product variants manufactured in the state-of-the-art Amberg plant rolls off the production line every second. Since the Siemens Electronics Plant (EWA) was founded in Amberg (D) in 1989, products manufactured there by Siemens have included Simatic programmable logic controllers (PLCs). On September 12 and 13 of this year, the EWA invited employees and customers to celebrate its 25-year jubilee.

Programmable logic controllers are used to control plants and machines like the onboard systems of cruise ships and to automate industrial manufacturing processes in fields such as the automotive engineering industry, with the aim of cutting time and costs while ensuring continuous quality improvement. The production process in Amberg itself is also controlled by Simatic: This is where Simatic produces Simatic.

Highest Quality
Siemens is the world market leader in the field of electronic controls. Production in the EWA takes place with a quality factor of 99,9988 percent. A defect quota this low is unique to a production plant. The reason: key elements of the digital factory are already being used in the EWA today. Products communicate with machines, all processes are IT-optimized and controlled.

From the look of the facility, little has changed since 1989. Although the workforce of currently around 1,100 and the size of the production area have remained almost constant, the production volume has increased eight-fold.