Lamifil invests in innovative new casting facilities

Lamifil’s aluminium division produces overhead conductors, solid and cable conductors for underground cables and wires in various aluminum alloys for mechanical applications for industries such as automotive, aviation, food and consumer goods. Preparing this division for future growth, Lamifil is transforming its aluminium melting facilities in Belgium from the ground up using a unique production process and state-of-the-art equipment.

lamifil-melting-facilities

The existing melting infrastructure dates from well into the previous century and did not longer accommodate Lamifil’s future needs. By renewing the entire process and machinery, Lamifil will be able to increase its focus on enhancing product quality, employee ergonomics and safety while improving energy efficiency, decreasing emissions and reducing material loss. With this project Lamifil is realizing a key milestone of its strategic pillar ‘Connecting with the future’ as part of the company’s strategy that is supported by a significant package of investments.

The new design involves the switch from separate melting and casting furnaces to a combined system of melting and casting that allows alloying as well. It mainly consists of three all new aluminium melting-holding furnaces, equipped with specially designed doors, a new innovative rapid charging system, an automated stirrer and low NOX regenerative burner systems. Thanks to advanced technology, automation and analytics lamifil-melting-facilitiesused for autonomous production monitoring, co-workers will be able to focus on production performance and quality as certain laborious tasks will be omitted.

Lamifil expects the new facilities to be operational later this year. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the planned installation and the switchover period have been slightly delayed. Currently, Lamifil anticipates the yearly closing of the rolling mill to be from August 8 till August 31. Other divisions such as cabling, wire drawing and copper stay open during summer.

For this project, Lamifil has partnered with Sistem Teknik, one of the leading turnkey solution providers for state-of-the-art technology that is fully integrated for industry 4.0 thermal processing applications.