The Interview: Johannes Wick, Bühler
Originally
published in the latest edition of Milling and Grain: January – February 2015
In
September last year Johannes Wick took over the reigns of Bühler’s Grain
Milling Business Area - one of five newly organised business areas within the
grains & food company. With a non-milling background, Johannes Wick today
heads up one of the most advanced milling process design and equipment
manufacturing facilities globally along with its distribution and marketing
responsibilities. Milling and Grain magazine was fortunate to have the
opportunity to interview Mr Wick just prior to his official introduction as
Head of Grain Milling in late August 2014. It is a milestone for MAG to start
2015 by publishing this key interview on a futuristic outlook for the flour
milling industry.
Can you
tell us a little of your background and view of milling?
I joined Bühler in April last year and take over my new
role from September 1. I do have a close relationship with this company over
many years. I grew up in this area of St. Gallen and I have several former
school mates working here in Bühler. My background is in engineering. I studied
mechanical engineering in Zurich and actually did my internship here at Bühler.
I have a master degree in engineering from the ETH in Zürich, Switzerland and
an MBA from IESE in Barcelona, Spain with an exchange at Sloan at MIT
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in Boston, USA.
My background is in the energy business and in particular
with power generation facilities with cogeneration, district heating and steam
extraction systems. One of the most recent successes was the construction and
commissioning of a 2000 MW gas-fired combined cycle power plant in record times
at Pembroke Power Station in the UK worth above UK£1 billion.
How does
energy production and construction overlap with milling? And what do you bring
to your new role leading the world’s most advanced grain milling equipment
division?
We have received several rewards for our work at the
Pembroke power station. The project achieved the best-ever standards of any
industrial project for the integration of union labour. This was achieved through an optimal selection with
the right mix of contractors coming from several nations including Wales,
England, Poland, and Spain. We also have implemented mandatory heath tests and
services for employees in need, such as medical support and even fully
protected walkways to ensure worker safety. We were very proud that our efforts
were rewarded by the UK government with the sword of honor for the best
performance on occupational health and safety on an industrial project. We also
covered every environmental aspect including the maintenance of water quality
and fish life through intake to the same condition on its return.
But what are the similarities with milling? Many of
these processes and principles are equally applicable for grain milling
projects. My focus furthermore was not just on final product quality alone but
also on the control and energy systems that provide that quality.
Can you
explain a little more about how you envisage the future developments at Buhler?
Optimised and automated systems offer the greatest
possibility for achieving an optimal manufacturing process. We can do much more
in milling by integrating and optimising individual production processes. This
is particularly important for the future of milling in order to remain
competitive as for our customers skilled resources for the operation get more
costly and much more difficult to recruit. A further angle we can achieve by
optimizing the overall project considering also the customer scope beyond its
interfaces. This is particularly important in turnkey projects.
What are
the advantages of a new approach like this?
It makes for better overall outcomes. Our customers
have a big share in the overall cost of construction and in building the new
plants. Their scope is today not integrated sufficiently. Although big
improvements have already been achieved, I strongly believe that further
considerable efforts need to be done to improve
efficiency over long operation periods and to reduce overall capex and
energy usage. For example, one driver could be to find ways to increase the
level of decentralization of electrical equipment to reduce the large amount of
cabling. More integrated systems would not only reduce investment costs but
also reduce installation time. My goal is to create gradually for the customer a
better offering that saves time and costs in construction and operation.
What
other areas do you see as needing attention?
We are developing machinery that reduces energy
consumption up to 30 percent. That’s very good but if we turn our focus on the
overall process we possibly can save even more ! We need to be focusing on
optimising the whole system and not just the individual machines.
What of
the future? Do you see energy being a critical factor for milling globally?
A: Reducing overall energy consumption is not a short
term goal. However, with rising energy costs we need to find new ways. A long
term dream would be to have a zero energy mill. Why wouldn’t that be possible?
If we were able to fully utilize the waste heat of the production process and
if additionally the lower value parts of the grain would be used for energy
conversion, we could get there. A fully integrated biomass fired boiler for
instance could reduce the overall energy demand of a mill itself quite
significantly.
Are
there other areas you’d like to see addressed in the mill?
We need to focus on where the market is going and move
faster if we are to take advantage. We have to introduce competences beyond the
milling point. As an example to improve sanitation in mills, we can learn
through analogies with other industries where product and process safety had
been considered earlier as critical.
How do we manage such projects? In all what we are
doing we need to try to provide better value for the money invested. My goal is to build plants faster and with
lower operational costs. I truly believe in speed. Time is the biggest risk and
cost driver in the construction period, regardless of whether its a power plant
or flour mill. Shorter, and faster builds means its easier financially for the
customer.
Read the magazine HERE.
The Global Miller
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which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.
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