Renewed production line for frozen French fries: Farm Frites engages Heveco and Siemens for expansion

To continue to meet the needs of their customers, renewed Farm Frites their operational unit for the production of pre-fried, frozen French fries in Lommel. In the process, the processing capacity doubled and a coating applicator was also integrated into the process line. Heveco from Genk carried out the complete electrical engineering of this expansion project. As a Siemens solution partner, the integrator used numerous products from these technology suppliers in the process: from frequency controls to PLCs and HMIs.

Frozen fries

Farm Frites is headquartered in the Netherlands and also has four production sites in Belgium, Poland and Egypt. The site in Lommel is the largest in the group and consists of four operational units for the production of potato flakes, frozen or chilled French fries and mash specialties. The flakes go to the industry for further processing into end products such as potato chips etc.; the other products are sold mainly in the wholesale and food service sectors. This all the way to Southern Europe or South America; depending on whether the French fries are chilled or frozen.

Coatings

The "triple A" line of operational unit 3 was recently fitted with coating capabilities. "These are frozen fries of the highest quality, mainly intended for fast food chains," says Sven Cardinaels, E&I project leader at Farm Frites Lommel. "That coating is an extra layer, with which we can add colors or flavors to the fries. Or it can also be an invisible coating that makes the fries stay hot and crispy longer after baking. So this is how our customer then preserves optimal production quality and reduces food losses by having to throw away cold or limp fries."

Capacity

Moreover, this project also involved a substantial increase in the capacity of this production line, which fitted in with the Western European expansion plans of the globally active group. "To this end, we completely rebuilt and expanded the existing line except for a few process steps. It is now largely assembled in a new production hall," Cardinaels points out.

Renewed process line

Drying tunnel

Specifically, for example, there is a new drying tunnel built in front of the baking oven. In it, fans circulate conditioned outside air above a conveyor belt. "This drying step is important to obtain a crispy end product. Sustainability was an important aspect here, because we recover the heat from the baking oven to heat up this dryer. Furthermore, we can limit the heat, thanks to the large surface of the tunnel. Moreover, we control the dryer not by temperature but by humidity, in order to obtain a more stable drying process with lower consumption. Through all these interventions, we are achieving significant energy savings," says the project manager.

"Our capacity has doubled and we have an extra toehold."

Bypass coating applicator

There is also that eventual coating step, in a bypass setup, prior to frying. Here, the fries are immersed in a paste, which partly drips off during the subsequent transport. Here too - via air knives - a certain recuperation of the coating takes place, just as the excess oil after the frying of the fries in the two stages fryer is recovered.

"In the final process steps, the pre-fried fries are successively cooled and frozen. Then there is a mechanical sorter who ejects those French fries that may have been broken, deformed or stuck together by the previous steps. Finally, the frozen products end up in the various packages after which they are transported to our cold store via automated internal transport," Cardinaels said.

Electrical engineering

For the E&I part and the automation of this expansion, regular partner Heveco from Genk was called in, which has been on the floor here for over thirty years. "On this project, we not only took care of the electrical work for the utilities, but we also took care of, for example, the board construction and wrote the software for the PLCs. Thus, we provided one central control for all machines in the renewed production line, including thus the coating applicator. We also made a number of safety-technical adjustments to a number of machines," says Bart Huygen, co-owner of Heveco.

Service

In doing so, this integrator chose as solution partner of Siemens, among others, for over a hundred of their frequency controls. "These are all of the same G120 type, to simplify the work of Farm Frites' Technical Services through that standardization in case of any breakdowns. This way they become familiar with it quicker and it also offers advantages towards spare parts add. The modular concept of these drives - with separate power and control sections - also contributes to ease of maintenance."

"In the same vein, we felt it was important that the chosen variable speed drives be serviced for at least another ten years, and for this reason we chose Siemens over another technology provider. We ourselves were not yet familiar with these controllers, but our employees could count on the necessary support from their specialists in this regard. In turn, we then worked with Siemens to train the Farm Frites technicians. During a demo session, they were quickly convinced of the ease of use and reliability. After all, at commissioning, all drives turned out to be faultless with one exception, whereas in our experience you can expect an average of 3 to 5%," he points out.

"It is a project of great magnitude, with more than 100 frequency converters"

Timing

In addition to the technological challenge - also due to the size of the project - there was also tight timing: the revamped line obviously had to be completed as soon as possible up and running are. "In the new hall we were able to install everything nicely, but during our work in the old building the existing line remained operational there. So through the necessary changeovers, we had to get the whole job done during the short production downtimes, which also required some creativity and flexibility from our team. By integrating the two main PLCs, the HMIs and the frequency controls into the same TIA Portal platform, however, we were able to save a significant amount of time," Huygen continued.

Cleanability

With a view to food hygiene and cleanability, as many cabling, decentralized boards, distribution boxes and electronic components as possible were concealed behind a false ceiling of stainless steel sandwich panels. "In this way, we obtain an easily accessible 3-meter-high technical room there, above the 11-meter-high production hall in which the various production steps are arranged in cascade. The control of the CIP installation of the entire production line was also carried out by us, by the way," it sounds.

Safety

In this technical room, ET200SP I/O islands were also used for the decentralized periphery. The great advantage of this is the flexible expansion possibilities due to the modular construction of the components. This was necessary because the engineering was thus ongoing during implementation.

Communication here is via profinet, built with Scalance X switches, and the frequency controls are linked through Profisafe. "By the way, the safety programming is fully integrated into the S7-1500 failsafe PLCs. This means a big win toward cabling."

Conclusion

"Our capacity has doubled and with the coating option we have an extra asset. So this gives us a better competitive position as a supplier for fast food chains, just as we had envisaged beforehand," Cardinaels evaluates the expansion project.