SWITZERLAND – Swiss Technology Company Bühler Group and leading manufacturer of centrifugally chilled cast iron rolls for the food processing industry Balaguer Rolls from Spain have partnered to develop next-generation smart rolls for grain processing.
Under the partnership, the two companies will work together in the design and supply of SmartRolls and services of the highest quality standards allowing remote condition and performance monitoring of the rolls.
Being industry leaders in grain milling, the two companies however recognize that scale is critical on the digital journey and have partnered to deployed quickly scale to ensure the cumulative impact on yield or process efficiency across an industry becomes highly significant.
Bühler and Balaguer will work together in the development of the next generation of rollDetect built on the Balaguer optical measurement system and provide SmartRolls connected to Bühler Insights enabling improved mill performance.
Additionally, this collaboration agreement will allow Bühler to access the optical roll measurement technology from Balaguer, allowing it to will gradually replace its rollDetect service with the new optical solution.
Based on this collaboration agreement, Bühler will continue to provide its high-performance roll portfolio from its state-of-the-art foundry in China but will additionally benefit from the European manufacturing capabilities of Balaguer.
The company said this arrangement unlocks the opportunity to serve all levels of market requirements, with a better optimized logistics footprint from being closer to its customer base.
The Balaguer rolls will also be used for retrofitting existing assets with SmartRoll service packages connected to Bühler Insights and for big diameter rolls.
“The collaboration agreement will serve customers worldwide by building on Balaguer’s recognized knowledge in the field of cast iron rolls and proprietary optical measurement system while making full use of Bühler’s strong process knowledge and leadership in digitalizing processing lines through Bühler Insights,” says David and Santiago Balaguer, owners of Balaguer.
Additionally, the collaboration will allow the provision to the industry of solutions to measure not only the conditions of rolls physically, but also while in operation, the impact of rolls on yield, and the mill performance overall.
“Customers will benefit from significantly more efficient operation with higher safety and optimization of service downtimes provided by the different elements of the SmartRoll service technologies developed by Balaguer and Bühler,” says Johannes Wick, CEO Bühler Grains & Food.
Bühler and Balaguer will continue to service its respective customer base and act in the markets independently, the statement from Bühler said.
Earlier, Bühler announced that it is in the final stages for the first rollout of its integrated rice mills where the optical sorter, whitener, and sensors are connected in an integrated system powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The swiss group has also recently announced a partnership with Vyncke to offer integrated solutions with which biomass side stream products are transformed into clean process energy while reducing the customers’ carbon footprint.
Liked this article? Subscribe to Food Business Africa News, our regular email newsletters with the latest news insights from Africa and the World’s food and agro industry. SUBSCRIBE HERE
