IN Brief:
- CCEP Germany is using Krones’ Rapid Part on Demand service at its Dorsten beverage plant.
- Approved plastic spares, format parts, and adjustment aids can be printed locally within hours.
- The system is intended to reduce line downtime and stocks of suitable slow-moving components.
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Deutschland is using 3D printing at its Dorsten plant to produce selected replacement parts on demand, shortening the wait between a component failure and a workable repair. The site is using Krones’ Rapid Part on Demand service for qualified plastic spares, format parts, and adjustment aids.
The arrangement shifts part of the maintenance store into a controlled digital inventory. Instead of holding every low-volume component on a shelf, the plant can obtain an approved production file and manufacture the part locally using defined printer settings and specified materials. Krones says suitable components can be produced within hours.
Dorsten has worked with Krones on 3D-printed parts since early 2021. Rapid Part on Demand formalises the process through Krones.shop, where customers can access print data for released components and manage the job through a digital warehouse.
Local printing is not a general licence to reproduce any machine component. Mechanical load, temperature, chemicals, cleaning regimes, contact conditions, and expected service life determine whether additive manufacture is appropriate. Krones specifies the material and print settings for released parts and says component quality is tested by its engineering teams.
That qualification separates industrial spare-parts printing from workshop improvisation. A guide, gripper, spacer, or format component may appear simple, yet small dimensional errors can cause jams, poor container handling, accelerated wear, or damage elsewhere on a high-speed line. Repeatable settings, controlled files, and version management are therefore as important as the printer.
The maintenance case is strongest where downtime costs far more than the failed item. Beverage plants often hold extensive stocks because a modest polymer component can stop a filler, labeller, packer, or conveyor section as effectively as a large drive assembly. Carrying every possible item ties up cash and warehouse space, but reducing stock without changing the supply model leaves the plant exposed to transport delays and discontinued parts.
On-demand production changes that calculation for a limited class of components. Physical stock can be replaced by approved files, feedstock, printer capacity, and staff able to run and inspect the process. Bearings, seals, motors, electronic assemblies, safety-related parts, and many product-contact components will continue to require conventional supply. The opportunity lies in slow-moving plastic items that can be manufactured under controlled conditions near the line.
The approach complements CCEP’s wider use of digitally supported maintenance. The bottler has also deployed Spot inspection robots on production lines to collect information in areas that are repetitive or difficult for manual rounds. Inspection robots and printed spares address different stages of maintenance, but together they reduce the time between detecting a problem and restoring equipment.
The digital inventory still requires governance. Files must be protected against unauthorised alteration, printers need calibration, and completed parts require an acceptance process proportionate to their function. Material batches, print orientation, layer adhesion, and post-processing can all affect performance, even when the geometry is correct.
The plant must also retain enough printer capacity and trained cover for the service to remain useful during an emergency. A machine that is unavailable, incorrectly set, or dependent on one operator recreates the delay in another form. Routine test prints, controlled material storage, and periodic review of the digital catalogue can keep the process ready before a breakdown turns it into a production-critical task during a busy shift.
Traceability also needs to cover the printed component. Maintenance teams should be able to identify the file version, material, machine, settings, operator, and installation date, then connect that record to subsequent inspection or failure data. Without that control, local production can replace a visible warehouse problem with a less visible documentation problem.
For ageing equipment, approved additive manufacture may extend useful operating life where original low-volume plastic parts have become difficult to source. It will not solve obsolescence in controls, software, or proprietary assemblies, but it can prevent an otherwise serviceable line from remaining idle while a minor discontinued item is located or remade.
CCEP’s Dorsten deployment keeps the proposition narrow enough to be credible: selected parts, qualified by the equipment supplier, produced locally when time or stock availability justifies it. The printer does not replace the spare-parts network. It gives the plant another route for the components that are inexpensive to make but disproportionately expensive to wait for.
