Contact
Sigurjón Arason
Chief Engineer
sigurjon.arason@matis.is
Automation in salted fish processing
This project is a development project between Matís ohf, Vísir hf and 3X Technology where the main goal was to develop equipment and processing systems to simplify the management and control of the processing process of salted fish, thereby ensuring better and more stable quality. The project investigated, among other things, how the equipment affects product quality, emissions, etc. Work efficiency and productivity as well as human savings were examined in particular by comparing Vísir hf's older facilities with the current ones. 3X Technology took care of the design and development of the equipment, Vísir hf provided processing and knowledge as well as putting most of the equipment into use. Matís was responsible for conducting experiments as well as evaluating the quality aspects of the project. The project was intended to address the main aspects of salted fish processing:
• Automatic sorting of fillets coming from a sprayer and into a basket.
• Salting of fillets and flat fish, ie. from brine to dry salting.
Desalination before packing and quality assessment
• Pre-analysis for quality assessment, sorting and packaging (approach of robots).
The main results of the project are that the capacity of Vísir hf in Grindavík and Djúpivogur has increased considerably with the introduction of the equipment from 3X Technology, or up to 20%.
This project is a developmental project between Matís ohf, Vísir hf and 3X Technology where the main objective is to develop an equipment and process plant to simplify the controlling process of salted fish and thereby ensuring continuous and better product quality. In this project, following things where mainly investigated: The influence from the equipment on the product quality. Working economy along with labor saving was specially investigated by comparing the “old” working arrangement with the new one. The company 3X Technology was responsible for the design and the development of the equipment. The salt fish company Vísir hf introduces the new equipment to their process plant along with providing knowledge about the product characteristic. The company Matís ohf took care of all the quality control along with performing all the experiment of this project.
This project is intended to take care of the following main parts in the salt fish processing plant:
• Automatic arranging of fish fillet coming from the injection machine and into the tub box.
• Dry salting fish fillet, ie from the brine storage into dry salt.
• Salting before weighing and wrapping the fish fillet along with quality control.
• Analysis and approach of robots for packing and grading the product.
The main conclusion for this project is that Vísir hf in Grindavík and Djúpavogur has increased their throughput for at approximately 20% by introducing their new equipment from 3X Technology.