The firm, which employs 230 people at its state-of-the-art factory in Walsall, is providing Hedinn with early-stage design support and electrical control systems build for the production of its Hedinn Protein Plant (HPP) machines.
The machines are designed to make the production of fishmeal and fish oil more economic and efficient, both on land and sea. There are already such machines in operation on the Icelandic ship Solberg and the German vessel Berlin. Projects are already in advanced stages for installations in the Faroe Islands and the USA for processing produce including lobster shells.
“We are seeing a significant trend in larger machine builders focusing on strategic outsourcing, in order to help increase production capacity, improve production and sales lead times and create a competitive advantage with respect to time to market and scalability,” explained Tony Hague, Managing Director of PP Control & Automation.
“Hedinn is another example of the strategic partnerships we are looking to create and we are delighted to have secured a contract to play a role in delivering next generation machinery for the fishing sector – our first foray into this industry.”
PP Control & Automation have worked with engineers in Iceland to develop the design of the control systems, and are looking to standardise several of the manufacturing processes to help with increased volume once HPP becomes more mainstream.
The Hedinn Protein Plant has been developed with decades of experience in fisheries and fishmeal production. All conventional fishmeal plants in Iceland have been constructed or upgraded by Hedinn.
“The technology dictated a new partner that could provide advanced controls and automation assembly and design expertise and wanted to be involved from the start,” added Ragnar Sverrisson, managing director of Hedinn. “We couldn’t have done it in-house, so we started to look for strategic partners. PP Control & Automation were easily the most suitable and had the same passion we had for the product. There is massive potential for HPP and our volumes will increase rapidly. This partnership gives us the skills, capability and capacity to meet the anticipated demand.”
