DE-VAU-GE: 44 melters replaced without stopping production
A German manufacturer of cereals and bars packs non-stop on thirteen lines — and almost every day one of the melters would drop out.
DE-VAU-GE Gesundkostwerk Deutschland GmbH packs cereals, muesli, fruit and energy bars as well as plant-based drinks at its Lüneburg site — thirteen lines running continuously, five or six days a week. Roughly every day, one of the melters would drop out. The changeover to the new Alpha generation was carried out without a planned shutdown, and adhesive application failures have fallen to almost zero. This is the experience of a Robatech customer in Germany; on the Czech market the same technology and the same service model are supplied by Kaletech.
A plant where every minute of downtime hurts
Thirteen packaging lines, five or six days a week, running without a break. The German manufacturer DE-VAU-GE produces cereals, muesli, fruit and energy bars as well as plant-based drinks, and every outage feeds straight through into the production schedule. On one line or another, a melter stopped working practically every day.
“Before the upgrade, one of the melters failed on us almost every day,” says Vitali Loktew, who runs the breakdown maintenance team at the DE-VAU-GE plant in Lüneburg. “Not on the same machine every time, but always somewhere on our thirteen lines.”
Why the changeover came now
Some Concept units on site already had ten years of operation behind them, and the leasing agreement was coming up for renewal at the same time. “Moving to the new Alpha generation was ideally timed,” says Marco Willems, sales director of Robatech Germany. Besides the age of the technology, one further reason weighed in: standardising the equipment fleet.
Depending on the application, the older units carried two, four, six or eight heated hose connections. Today DE-VAU-GE works exclusively with the Alpha S Pro melter and its six connections. A spare unit can therefore go onto any packaging line, and maintenance, replacements and spare-parts management have all become considerably simpler.
An upgrade with the lines still running
In December 2025, Lüneburg started replacing the first batch: 16 adhesive application systems out of 33 in total. The condition was clear: production keeps running. “The first thing that springs to mind is downtime, obviously,” explains the breakdown maintenance manager. “We had to fit the schedule around production very carefully. Which machine could be taken out of service, and when? And would Robatech’s technicians have time in the window we needed? The cooperation worked very well, though.”
Around four hours were set aside per system — and that covered replacing the melter, the heated hoses, the application heads and components of the automatic filling system, plus tying it into the existing packaging line. “We kept to every deadline,” sums up Vitali Loktew. “And when something got stuck somewhere, even Mr Nielandt, who is on the sales side at Robatech, rolled up his sleeves. He actively helped us. That impressed me.”
What tipped the decision towards Alpha
DE-VAU-GE had compared several suppliers and several upgrade options beforehand. Alongside the technology itself, what settled it was years of cooperation and dependable service. “Robatech is Robatech,” stresses the breakdown maintenance manager. “What I mean is that the service is outstanding. And for us that is absolutely essential.”
Some packaging lines in the plant date back 15 to 20 years, so there is not much free space around them. “It was a big advantage that Alpha has a more compact footprint than Concept,” says Rainer Nielandt, who covers northern Germany as area sales manager for Robatech. On top of that, the new generation adds:
- a shorter heat-up time
- simple operation from a tablet or smartphone
- fast tracing of the cause when a failure occurs
One apparently minor detail proved just as decisive in day-to-day operation — the melter no longer carries a control panel. “Industrial trucks kept running into the units and damaging the displays. That quickly adds up to serious cost,” says the breakdown maintenance manager. “That is all behind us now.”
Half an hour of training — and maintenance copes on its own
Lüneburg has been running 33 Alpha units since April 2026. “At commissioning, the service technician from Robatech spent half an hour taking me through Alpha in detail,” says Martin Saße, electrical engineer in the DE-VAU-GE breakdown maintenance team. “Wi-Fi, operation, fault finding. From then on I could sort out plenty of things straight away by myself. Our technicians are delighted. You take a tablet, sign in, and you see straight away where the problem is.”
In Tangermünde, the upgrade of seven melters and a standby system is nearing completion. Marco Willems recommends discussing integration requirements with the machine builder well in advance: “Where older Concept units tend to be hard-wired, Alpha allows for modern communication and integration. We simply supply whatever interface is required.”
What Czech plants can take from this
DE-VAU-GE is a Robatech customer in Germany: Kaletech did not carry out this project. The technology behind it and the way it is serviced are nevertheless exactly what Kaletech supplies in the Czech Republic as a Robatech partner. What transfers best is the finding that dozens of units can be replaced without a planned shutdown, and that the decision in the end came down not to a single parameter but to a combination of more compact equipment, tablet-based diagnostics and a fast service response.
If you are running melters that are ten years old or more, the sensible starting point is working out what they cost you today — consumption, rejects, unplanned downtime. That is precisely what an operating cost audit is for. Ongoing care and emergency call-outs are then covered by Kaletech service.
Results
- Melter failures dropped to almost zero after the upgrade
- Lüneburg has been running 33 Alpha units since April 2026; 44 melters are being upgraded in total
- The replacement work ran while production continued, at roughly four hours per adhesive application system
- A single model, the Alpha S Pro with six connections — a spare unit can go onto any of the thirteen lines
- Considerably simpler maintenance, replacements and spare-parts management
- After half an hour of training, maintenance handles routine faults itself from a tablet
- No more displays damaged by industrial trucks — the melters no longer have a control panel
- The upgrade continues at the Tangermünde site (seven melters and a standby system)
