Europe's Major Sugar Companies Seek Robson Systems

• 
• 5th November 2008
• Materials Handling
 

 

Robson completes systems totalling £2.1Million pounds for the sugar industry.

Based in Darnall, Sheffield, Geo Robson & Co (Conveyors) Ltd has built a global reputation for bulk material handling systems; Robson's specialist team of engineers, who are experienced in all aspects of the sugar industry where despatched to Belgium to design a system for Raffinerie Tirlemontoise, who required a system capable of carrying 80kg bags of sugar beet to sampling stations.

Raffinerie Tirlemontoise founded in 1836, with a turnover of more then 1.600 million Euro, has grown into one of the most important companies of the Belgian economy with over 1700 employees.

The £700K contract involved systems at two of Raffinerie Tirlemontoise sites within Belgium at Tirlemont and Longchamps conveying in excess of 800 x 80kg bags of sugar beet per day.

With only an eight-week window before the sugar harvest known in the industry as a campaign, incorporating a system of bar code readers, bag stitches, bag weighers and conveyors, was certainly a challenge. The Robson engineers pulled out all the stops, even including the design and build of a steel clad building to home the entire system and protect the product and workforce from the elements. The building canopy had to be lifted in one piece and carefully placed on the structure.

Clever design ensures recycled equipment works at new plant.

A little Closer to home, British Sugar required a new Pulp Press Station, which includes the relocation of fifteen screw conveyors and two belt conveyors at British Sugar's Newark Plant.

The £1.4 million contract included reconfiguring the equipment from two of British Sugar's other plants and incorporating it into the Newark plant. This involved many hours of design and detailing to ensure the reused equipment of fifteen screw conveyors, with sizes up to 12 metres long and 1.1 metre in diameter, and one belt conveyor, 32 metre long, could be reused without expensive major modifications, saving the customer thousands of pounds. A new sixty-metre belt conveyor was also supplied to transfer the pressed pulp from the new pulp press station.

The Pulp Press Station is a process that extracts the juices from sliced sugar beet. The juice is transferred through other processes of evaporating and crystallising to create the white sugar we are familiar with. The separated beet pulp is not wasted; it also goes through other processes of drying and blending with molasses to produce livestock feeds.

The installation included the erection of steelwork, to support the relocated presses, screw conveyors and British Sugar's 30-ton capacity overhead crane. Modifications to the existing factory roof were required to facilitate the installation of the belt conveyor, which transfers the pulp to the new station. The installation took 6 months, achieving the high standards of Health and Safety performance expected by British Sugar.

The screw conveyors where originally supplied by Robson, some being 10 years old. These were returned to the factory for inspection and modification. The condition of the drives, bearings and screws were still very good and required little refurbishment work. This is a fitting tribute for a company that has produced conveyor systems and solutions for over one hundred years.

 

Associated Links

• Hub-4 Profile of Geo Robson & Co (Conveyors) Ltd
• Geo Robson & Co (Conveyors) Ltd Company Website