Kinnunen Mill in Utajärvi mills high-quality wheat, rye and barley flour and a wide range of organic products, using pure, high-quality grain from northern Finland as raw materials. The mill’s loading control for the flour milling side was outdated and spare parts and expertise were scarce. Tamtron upgraded the control system at Kinnunen Mill, which improved the overall smoothness of operations.
The new control system ensures fast and variable production
The need for the upgrade arose when support for the old control system was difficult to obtain. The new control was implemented with Siemens Simatic S7-1500 programmable logic. The system was selected partly on the basis of the customer’s request and was supported by Tamtron’s (Tamtron’s Lahti unit, formerly known as Lahti Precision) long experience with Siemens control systems. At the same time, the old summing tank scales were replaced with new MID-compliant automatic scales.
With the new system, adaptability and usability were improved. Upgrading the remote connections allows for a faster and more flexible service, technically based on data directly from the equipment level.
“Another noteworthy aspect of the modernisation was the tight schedule that culminated in the roll-out. The system replacement was planned to cause the least possible disruption to production operations. Due to the modernisation, the bulk loading was only down for three days, only one of which was a weekday,” says Toni Kuure, Production Manager at Kinnunen Mill.
Control systems also for other industrial applications
Tamtron supplies automation and data acquisition systems not only to the food industry but also to other industrial sectors.
Automatic control of dosing and bulk material handling, recipe handling and reporting are vital to our processes. In addition, the connection of scales to customised cloud services enables, for example, the monitoring of carbon dioxide emissions, the maintenance of stock balances and the extensive management of weighing data between different parties.
Tamtron acquired Lahti Precision’s business in 2023 and will continue to operate under the Tamtron brand.
