Holland Malt has deployed a LogiSphere system from Sensite Solutions, a leading provider of wireless local tracing and telemetry solutions in order to achieve continuous monitoring at its new Eemshaven plant.
"Continuous monitoring of barley stored at our facilities is essential for the quality of the final product," said Derk Reiffers, Holland Malt's plant manager. "In order for this to function properly, temperature sensors must be placed in the barley itself, hence our need for a wireless solution.
"The system installed by Sensite Solutions enables us to keep the barley at the optimum temperature at all times. This is beneficial to the overall product quality. Moreover, by knowing the temperature at any time, we can optimise the drying process, thus realising substantial savings on our energy bill."
The installation at Holland Malt, which was recently set up as a joint venture between the Dutch beer brewer Bavaria and the agricultural cooperative Agri?rm, demonstrates how manufacturers and suppliers can utilise cutting edge technology to achieve optimum productivity.
"We were able to provide the wireless temperature monitoring tags in a format ensuring their flawless operation whilst they are covered with several metres of barley," said Pim Adang, CEO Sensite Solutions.
"Using the fact that the associated receivers form their own wireless infrastructure, we could cover the complete storage area using just three of them. This ease of installation and the reliable wireless communication are two of the key characteristics we find of invaluable use in all of our bulk storage control projects."
Holland Malt's new Eemshaven malting plant will be able to produce 130,000 tonnes of malt from approximately 165,000 tonnes of malting barley grown on 30,000 hectares of arable land, enabling an annual production of around one billion litres of beer. The installation of Sensite Solution tracking also follows the recent deployment of a Buhler high-capacity cleaner in order at the plant to achieve safety without compromising processing efficiency.
Holland Malt believes that the installation of the larger version of the Buhler PRIMUS high-capacity grain cleaner will guarantee optimum processing results at a critical point in the supply chain. The grain cleaner is equipped with some 30 square meters of sand sieve area, about ten times larger than the area currently offered by separators that have commonly been used up to now.
And apart from being the safest, Holland Malt also aims to be one of Europe's fastest and most reliable supplier of top-class malt. It is hoped that the four Buhler PRIMUS high-capacity grain cleaners of types 200/8 and 100/8, which have been installed to remove coarse as well as ?ne and low-density impurities from up to 600 metric tons of barley or 180 tons of malt per hour, will help achieve this goal.
The installation of the PRIMUS system could also save production time due to a system of material diverters. These allow materials of different particle sizes to be alternately processed without requiring any sieve changes.
This is made possible by the different perforations of the preliminary and main screens, which can be selected using two diverters. The resulting quadruple combination for so-called two-variety operation is an important feature when it comes to using a single machine to alternately clean wheat, rye, oats, barley, corn (maize), soybeans, rice, or ?eld beans.
The Holland Malt malthouse is located in the Dutch Nort Niederlande grain belt on the North Sea.