Upgraded Wombourne McCain plant is oven ready for action12 February 2010

McCain's potato specialities production site at Wombourne has been successfully updated, with new washing and de-stoning equipment, and remaining plant moved and reinstalled.

John Timmins, Wombourne site engineering manager, reports that the project was all about enabling more flexible and efficient operations, with faster changeovers and leaner production flows.

Deritend H&K, which forms a permanent part of the plant maintenance team, carried out the work, including planning, purchasing, fabrication, pipework, wiring, installation and commissioning - acting as principal contractor, with responsibility for co-ordination under CDM safety regulations.

Timmins explains that the new potato preparation plant - essentially, washing and de-stoning - involved considerable wiring and structural fabrication (mostly walkways and pipework, in anodised steel and stainless), all of which was carried out at an on-site workshop.

Other engineering work was completed at Deritend H&K's workshop in West Bromwich, and the organisation also took on interfacing of the new washing plant to its PLC controls, as well as sourcing and installing all the valve assemblies, pumps and conveyors, and carrying out all commissioning.

As for moving the machinery, project manager Jim Crooks (below right), from the McCain Central Engineering department in Scarborough, says that Deritend again handled all fabrication of walkways, as well as moving and installing pumps, augers, conveyors, pipework and cabling - completing all work to food grade washdown specifications.

Brian Tinham

Related Companies
Deritend Group

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