Norwegian salmon producer Slakteriet AS has selected Icelandic company Valka AS to provide a complete grading and packing system for whole salmon, which includes automated ice dosing, labelling and box handling system.
With the new line Slakteriet will be able to double its production capacity to 120 fish per minute, with a lower per unit production cost.
"We have plans to increase the production and intend to have more effective operation," says Kristin Bergstøl Hansen, managing director at Slakteriet. “We see Valka as a modern and innovative company. They presented us a complete solution that we believe is very beneficial, with more automation than we currently have and that gives us more flexibility in the production.”
The new Valka grading and packing system fully automates the production process from gutting to palletizing. The system allows Slakteriet to better adapt to its customers needs and provides the flexibility to quickly switch production according to the demand that day.
Ole Johan Eilertsen, development manager at Slakteriet, says, "We need to be quick to respond if the harvesting is not as expected or if orders are changed. The Valka system is user friendly and gives us great oversight of the production so we can easily adapt to the market demand."
The whole system, from harvesting to dispatching will be operated with Valka's RapidFish software, including the new SCADA module that provides actionable insight critical to the production process.
"The integrated management system gives us the information we need in real time and a nice feature is that all system errors are graphically displayed. That will really help keeping the system downtime low," adds Ole.
System installation and production start is planned for March 2015.
"We are looking forward to getting the new system installed and expect that our customers will soon notice that we have better tools for controlling the production and all their documents readily available when needed," says Kristjan Kristjansson, Valka’s general manager. “We look forward to further work with Slakteriet. This will be the third salmon plant in Norway running the Valka system and gives us a good boost for the future.”
