Being part of Katoen Natie, a world leader when it comes to port activities, logistics and semi-industrial services, has its advantages. Katoen Natie has over 4.8 million m² of warehouses located throughout 25 countries, worldwide. As a member of this international player, we’re able to use its facilities for the benefit of our projects.
For example:
A manufacturer asked us to engineer and build a blending line in a North-African country. The installation consists out of 4 main parts: dry material handling, CIP, kneading and bagging. Our know-how about how to treat the given product, combined with our experience in international projects, was decisive for awarding us this contract.
The dry material handling level consists out of a bag discharging station, a mixer and a pneumatic conveying line equipped with a metal detection system. The conveying line feeds a loss in weight feeder installed above a kneader. Next to the dry handling ap¬plication we also engineered a liquids installation which doses water and oils into the kneader. The whole process is CIP-able thanks to an automated CIP installation designed by our liquids department.
Because the installation is to be built in a North-African country, specific concerns like administrational issues, local regulations and special bank regulations need to be taken into account. The administrative burden is a big issue. Whenever a single piece of equipment needs to be imported, an overload of paperwork is assured. In order to avoid this and guarantee that the agreed delivery time will be respected, J-Tec came up with a clever solution.
We used a Katoen Natie warehouse near our headquarters in Belgium, were we build and even pre-wire the entire installation. Doing this gave us the advantage of thoroughly testing the installation without and with product, to obtain a vertical start-up. The installation was also engineered in specific modules and skids in order to simplify the transportation. This should reduce the time needed for dismounting and mounting the complete blending line. Another advantage is that the complete installation will be sent to North-Africa in one shipment, reducing the administrative delays to a minimum. This project is yet another example of the powerful formula J-Tec and Katoen Natie represents.
