GFE SOLUTIONS · CASE STUDIES

SIEMENS S5 TO S7-1500 MIGRATION
— 12 STATIONS
IN ONE WEEKEND

PLC Case - Packaging machinery

Industry

Packaging machinery

Country

Germany

Software

Siemens TIA Portal · S7-1500 · WinCC · PROFINET

Duration

48-hour migration window

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The situation

A packaging machine manufacturer needed to retire end-of-life Siemens S5 controllers across a live 12-station production line at a customer facility. The customer’s production schedule allowed only a single weekend shutdown window — the new S7-1500 system had to be fully operational by Monday morning. There was no option for a staged migration or a partial cutover. The system either worked completely at the end of the 48-hour window, or it did not.

What GFE did

GFE re-coded all 12 stations from scratch in TIA Portal, mapping every I/O signal to PROFINET field devices and updating the WinCC SCADA to reflect the new hardware. A parallel validation approach was used in the weeks before the cutover, allowing the new code to be tested against the running system without interrupting production. The 48-hour shutdown window was used to execute a migration that had already been fully prepared and validated. Monday morning: all 12 stations operational, SCADA live, customer production running on schedule.

Results

12 stations

migrated in one weekend

0 downtime

during migration

S5 → S7-1500

full replatform

WinCC live

from Monday morning

Monday morning the line was running. We couldn’t believe it.

WHY GFE

Why GFE for PLC programming

Platform-specific programming

Each project is staffed with engineers experienced on the relevant platform — TIA Portal, TwinCAT, Pilz, or Rockwell.

Scalable capacity

Support can be engaged for a single project or structured as a long-term team extension — without permanent hiring.

Safety and certification

Practical experience with EN ISO 13849, SISTEMA calculations, and SRP/CS documentation for CE marking and TÜV review.

No language barrier

All team members are fluent in English, with additional language skills in German, Italian, Spanish, and more.

Have a PLC migration, new machine, or safety certification project?

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PL

Head office

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Phone: +48 798 763 604
For general enquiries: info@gfe-solutions.com
For sales enquiries: inquiry@gfe-solutions.com

UA

Back office

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Phone: +38 098 237 0047
Email: info@gfe-solutions.com

CLIENTS

Our customers

CLIENTS

Client voice

Christian Menke
,,

Christian Menke

  ·  

V. KRANZ GmbH

Our company produces safety-relevant welding assemblies for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry.

Due to the fact that it has become increasingly difficult to find good engineers and designers for our design department at our location in rural Münsterland, we set out at the end of 2018 to look for new external solutions in the service market.

Daniel Ilge
,,

Daniel Ilge

  ·  

WALDRICH COBURG GmbH

I really appreciate GFE’s flexibility and openness for new challenges. They are not afraid to start a new journey.
If I think about the external circumstances of the project we started together, we reached a learning curve and relating results that I did personally not expect.

Frank Pfister
,,

Frank Pfister

  ·  

CVS engineering GmbH

We required additional capacity and professional support for our R&D Team especially for a new product development.

And GFE Solutions offers capable support by very well-educated engineers. High professionalism. On time delivery and great communication (native German speakers).

Dr. Thomas Bauer
,,

Dr. Thomas Bauer

  ·  

DIENES Apparatebau GmbH

We are the company in constant need for plants for research or pilot projects of our clients. Last year we were working over the order in the field of medical technologies, which we succeeded to realize, including thanks to efforts of GFE Solutions team.

Sebastian Schuelke
,,

Sebastian Schuelke

  ·  

SICON GmbH

We were in need of help with our design department ressources and we had to move fast, internal ressources were not available and GFE was able to help quickly and competent. GFE works with dedication to the very needs of its customers, has a variety of specialists and has offered a fair price on a transparent basis.

Lukas Jochimek
,,

Lukas Jochimek

  ·  

Schauenburg Maschinen- und Anlagen-Bau GmbH

We were looking for additional engineers to expand our construction capacity. You seemed to be a young, motivated Team and except your professional expertise, your personal commitment made me confident to work with you. The cooperation has been seamless and very productive from the start. We are happy with the results.

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