A tail about preparing a delicious delicacy
Many Dutch people say that eating raw brined herring vertically, holding onto the tail, is the only right way. With this posing special requirements during the filleting process, a seafood company set about automating the process, as Omron explains
A
t its family-owned factory at the harbour of Ijmuiden in the Netherlands, Seafood Parlevliet has produced packaged fish
products since 1968, specialising in delicacies such as herring, mackerel and fried fish for the European market. Filleting herring, however, involves several manual steps such as
skinning the fish, which needs to be done by skilled workers – but it can be difficult to find the right people for the task. To help, Innovotech BV, a local automation partner, started developing a new prototype to automate manual steps such as skinning and scraping the fish, as well as cutting it to the right size while keeping the tail – all while ensuring quality, safety and hygiene. Herring needs to be frozen for a minimum of 48 hours to ensure that
no parasites are present, so Seafood Parlevliet stores the fish in a frozen warehouse in bags of brine. Once thawed, the herrings go through the automated filleting process in several steps. The solution also includes adding diced onions, as well as placing the fillets into their final packaging. Since the introduction of the first prototype, and learning from the
vast amount of data collected throughout the development process, the speed of fillets handled by one worker per hour has gone up from approximately 200 during the manual process, to up to 1000 with the latest version of the automated solution. In March 2018 the factory went through a complete rebuild to
automate the entire production line, with three lines now in operation. This has so far resulted in a 75% reduction in manual labour for Seafood Parlevliet, with the pick and place of the fish to the production line now the only manual step in the process. The automated production line includes various Omron components,
such as frequency regulators, servo drives, feeding solutions and safety blocks, as well as the brain of the machine in the panel solution. The panel building for the electrical control of the system was carried out by A. Hagoort Besturings techniek, a specialist in machine control solutions. Omron FH vision systems and cameras, paired with lighting and bespoke
machine vision software, were also implemented to carry out several vision checks during the process. The inspection ensures that the appearance of the fillets meets the high quality standards of the company – that there are no traces of blood present, for example, and that the skin and fins of the fish consistently meet the customer requirements. Any fish that does not meet the requirements will be removed from the production line. The machine can now handle any type of herring with high precision and
accuracy, while ensuring consistency for the customer. “With machine vision, we can help ensure 100% quality of each fillet that goes through the production line,” explained Mark van den Hoek, sales engineer at Omron. “During the development process, we have actually supported Innovotech and Seafood Parlevliet in identifying potential quality issues with specialised machine vision.” Innovotech is now
looking into new automation opportunities with Seafood Parlevliet, with future projects also using Omron equipment.
Omron
www.omron.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44
