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The Knauf plasterboard plant at Immingham places great emphasis on efficient production and quality product, so when a new weighing system achieved significant raw material savings, it made quite an impact.
Since Knauf started manufacturing in the UK 14 years ago, it has invested in excess of £200 million in the most advanced manufacturing technology, making it one of the largest suppliers of gypsum-based building materials in the UK.
Employing more than 16,000 employees in over 100 plants worldwide, it is still a family run business, and still passionate about the quality of its products.
This drive for excellence extends to the way the plants are run. Healthy inter-plant competition is encouraged, and best ideas to maximise efficiency are shared around the group.
Knauf’s plasterboard plant in Immingham, Humberside, is no exception. Over the past 12 years production output has increased year on year and this has been achieved by working with trusted equipment suppliers and re-rating some machinery.
A variety of different gypsum sources are used in the manufacturing process, all of which have very different performance characteristics. This caused problems for the plant’s original impact weigher (also known as a weigh plate) .
‘With the existing equipment we were seeing weighing inaccuracies which were unacceptable in terms of quality and efficiency’ said chief engineer at Immingham, Paul Snowden.
It was at this point that H&H Services took up the challenge. A bespoke supplier of solids handling equipment, they started with a clean sheet, to design and manufacture a weigh belt feeder to dose the gypsum.
The heavy duty feeder they installed features a weigh suspension with no moving parts, which makes it immune to off centre and side loading influences that can cause errors. This lack of moving parts also contributes to greater accuracy, longer life and less maintenance.
In addition, as the equipment is totally enclosed, it is not susceptable to dust build up which also reduces maintenance costs.
The equipment is easy to use, with intuitive graphical touch screens so the engineers and equipment operatives can instantly see the production criteria. This increases the amount of control that operators have over the equipment and further reduces the margin for error.
After a few additional modifications, Knauf estimate the belt feeder has now significantly improved accuracy which prompted the re-evaluation of the plant’s other feeders and control units.