Transporting parts on two different material flow levels

Diverse ABUS factory cranes in the food technology industry
Kiremko B.V. (www.kiremko.com) is a Dutch food industry company with headquarters in Montfoort, west of Utrecht, wholly dedicated to processing potatoes. Kiremko was established in 1965 and is active in designing, manufacturing and installing complete production lines. Upgrades and capacity expansions of existing production plants as well as individual equipment are also part of their activities. Kiremko offers reliable turnkey solutions for all applications: starting with systems to receive the raw products up until packaging lines for end products such as chips, potato flakes, fresh and parboiled potatoes, crisps, and others. Kiremko’s services include project management, engineering (advance) services, supply technology, and process support. The technology used is innovative, robust, and always designed for customer specific requirements.

Preparing the new construction of the production plant
Kiremko is active worldwide relying on an exclusive distribution network with local offices in Russia, in India, and in China as well as active sales representatives in other countries. The company has grown tremendously in the past years making it necessary to build a new production plant. It was Kiremko’s objective to use local suppliers. They decided to use ABUS cranes because of close proximity but also because of well over 30 years of experience with ABUS products and services. Kiremko as well as ABUS trust in the benefits of a longstanding strong partnership.

A first preliminary planning meeting was held at the end of 2014 with ABUS Kraansystemen (www.abus-kraansystemen.nl), the Dutch daughter company of ABUS Kransysteme GmbH. Several meetings followed and information was obtained from the future crane users. Based on this, Kiremko decided to source a combination of ABUS EOT cranes and ABUS wall travelling cranes. This combined material flow solution on two levels contributes significantly to an efficient working environment. The supply of a total of 14 electric overhead travelling cranes of different types and characteristics concluded at the end of 2016. These cranes serve to feed the components into the different stations within the production process and they have also taken on logistic tasks for the finished products.

Perfect interaction on two material flow levels
9 EOT cranes are used in the upper material flow level: a combination of load capacity and span determine the crane type selected. The smallest of the cranes used is a single girder crane ELV with a SWL of 3.2 tonnes and a span of 6 metres; the main girder consists of a rolled steel section. This crane is used for the blast cabinet. Four further cranes come in the shape of double girder cranes of the ZLK type. Three of these ZLK cranes have spans of 19.1 metres, feature two hoists each with load capacities of 6.3 tonnes which enables tandem operation of the two hoists when big and long goods need transporting. The fourth ZLK crane is also fitted with two hoists, albeit with SWLs of 5 tonnes each.

Another four cranes with load capacities of 5 tonnes and spans of 10.2 or 13.8 metres have been designed as single girder cranes of the ELS type, i.e. they feature so-called side-running trolleys. This particular trolley is characterised by the rope lead-off being lateral to the crane bridge which means that the available lifting height can be used to the optimum even if the ceiling of the building is low.

Five workplace related single girder wall running cranes of the EWL type make sure on the second material flow level that the parts to be processed and the components are directly delivered to the workbenches for further processing. These cranes all have SWLs of 1 tonne each and spans of 6 or 7 metres. They move on their own level underneath the bigger EOT cranes thus being the optimal solution for serving several workplaces. Spans of 12 metres would be possible for this type of crane depending on the load capacity. Main girders for all three crane types, ZLK, ELS and EWL, are designed as welded box girders.

Radio remote control for added safety
All cranes have been fitted with radio remote controls ABURemote in the shape of hand-held transmitters. The crane user is able to observe the loads and operate the cranes from a safe position while simultaneously being informed on selected settings, active cranes and hoists, strength of the signals, and weight of the loads suspended from the hooks all displayed on the display of the ABURemote.

Production has now been started in the Kiremko production plant equipped with state-of-the-art technology.