BE Group is a leading company specialising in the trading and production services of steel, special steel, stainless steel and aluminium; its customers operate mainly in the construction and manufacturing industries in Finland, Sweden and Poland.
Pro-Tot acted as the turnkey supplier for an automation project at BE Group’s Turku plant, in which a solution was developed for marking products on the sawing line in accordance with the customer’s requirements.
The brand-new sawing line was in need of improvement
BE Group’s Turku factory invested in a new sawmill line in 2022. However, this state-of-the-art sawmill line lacked a system for the automatic labelling of products, and the sawmill line supplier was unable to develop such a system. “This meant that tens of thousands of products were labelled by hand at the factory every year,” explains Toni Kolkka, project manager for the TBG team at Pro-Tot’s Kuopio office.
BE Group’s in-house project organisation began investigating how this labour-intensive process could be automated. Based on recommendations, Pro-Tot was selected as a partner and set about developing a labelling system for the saw line. Pro-Tot’s TBG team set about developing a solution to the problem. The TBG team focuses on solving industrial problems by utilising modern technology. Around 90 per cent of the TBG team’s projects involve industrial clients’ efforts to increase production capacity, reduce waste, modernise machinery and adapt it for new purposes, manage and improve production quality, and undertake machineryand equipment safety. The TBG team comprises automation programmers, mechanical and automation designers, and project management staff. The TBG team makes extensive use of its partner network and Pro-Tot’s other service and fabrication departments in its projects, as the solutions and deliveries are extensive and vary greatly in terms of requirements.
Flexibility and collaboration: bringing the project to a successful conclusion
“As with most projects, this one also involved all sorts of twists and turns. ‘In this project, we had to make some quite radical changes to our plans along the way,’ says Kolkka. We initially set out to implement the marking system as a completely standalone system based on the initial specifications, until it became apparent that it would inevitably require data that could only be provided by the major European sawmill supplier that had supplied the saw line. Fortunately, an agreement on cooperation was reached and the project was successfully completed as intended.
Significant results and cost savings
Thanks to the automation solution developed by Pro-Tot, the amount of manual labelling of products has been significantly reduced at BE Group’s Turku factory. “This improvement has streamlined production and will lead to savings. Now that the manual stage of the process has been reduced so much, staff can use this time for other tasks,” says Kolkka.
The collaboration continues
According to Kolka, the feedback received from BE Group regarding the collaboration has been positive. “Plant Manager Riku Haapa-alho has praised us for listening to their needs and finding solutions to both the initial issues and those that have arisen as the project has progressed. They are so satisfied with our work that BE Group now wishes to discuss with us the next steps in developing the sawmill line’s operations. We will therefore certainly be continuing our collaboration with them,” says Kolkka.
Pro-Tot’s strengths as an automation partner
Pro-Tot’s strengths as a partner in automation projects lie in the team’s expertise and its ability to listen to customers’ needs. “We want to work at the customer interface and deliver value to the customer. Openness is part of our approach – we discuss challenges and seek solutions to them,” says Kolkka. Pro-Tot’s straightforward and customer-focused approach has helped to build trusting and lasting customer relationships, of which the BE Group project is a good example.
