“Schatjes van Patatjes” or “Sacrées patates”. A well-known slogan in Belgium. But where and how are these fries produced and what are the latest trends? How did Lybover METAL help to achieve a higher yield?
Lutosa is one of the largest potato factories in the world and has two branches, namely Leuze-en-Hainaut (Hainaut) and Sint-Eloois-Vijve (West Flanders). They specialise in the processing of potatoes in the well-known tasty frozen fries, fresh fries, frozen potato specialities and dried potato flakes. In recent years there has been a new trend and consumers are demanding ever larger fries. In order to be able to respond to this demand, farmers have started to grow ever larger potatoes. But these patotoes also have to be cut into fries and this is done by water cutting; powerful pumps that project the potato at high speed onto a grid, the meshes of which vary according to the desired calibre.
Conversion of water cutting machine in existing production buildings
The size of the water knives had to be adapted because the potatoes are getting bigger and bigger. Otherwise the potato would be crushed if the opening of a knife is too small. Thanks to many years of experience, parent company McCain had a standard solution for this that Lutosa wanted to take over and install in its own buildings. But the existing production buildings were limited in space, so it was a very big challenge to integrate the installation into the existing building. Lybover METAL ensured that the installation could still be perfectly installed in the existing building and also provided the complete piping. In order to install this new installation and move parts of the existing installation, production was shut down for two weeks. Lybover METAL made a 3D scan of the production at Lutosa in order to be able to realise everything in the short term. This made it possible to manufacture the entire piping perfectly in advance.
3D scan saves time and money
In order to place the new water cutting machine smoothly in the existing production buildings of Lutosa, a 3D scan was carried out. This gave Lybover METAL insight into the new situation and they were able to avoid unforeseen circumstances. The technique of “3D-Scanning & Modelling” has many advantages:
- Time savings before, during and after the realization of the project
- Avoidance of unforeseen obstacles thanks to clash detection
- Better and more detailed pre-engineering
- Lower cost price thanks to correct and complete quotations
- Optimization of the production process
- Upfront visual control and simulations
- Correct as-built that is preserved for the future