Norwegian salmon and trout farming company Cermaq claims that it is building the world’s first smart factory for salmon in the Arctic Circle.
Following the closure of two processing sites in Norway, the company has tasked German food processing machinery manufacturer Baader and Norwegian automatic identification company CodeIT with building the new state of the art factory. Cermaq is hoping to tap into some of the benefits that have come with the advent of Industry 4.0.
Located in Storskjæret, a part of the Steigen municipality within Nordland county, northern Norway, the factory has been under construction since March 2017, with the first fish anticipated to enter the site by in the second half of 2018.
Visibility of supply chain is key
Atle Kvist is leading the project from Cermaq’s side. Commenting on the plans, Kvist said: “We as an industry are being more and more challenged on documentation and traceability, our green footprint is important to all our future planning and this is why we have chosen CodeIT AS to deliver a solution that fits our requirements very well. They specialize in intelligent and flexible software that gives us the control and visibility we need.”
Cermaq says that while Baader is supplying the machinery, CodeIT is supplying the cross platform inter connectivity and digitization of the new Industry 4.0 facility, supposedly one of the first of its kind in seafood. Working behind the scenes for almost a year, CodeIT has designed a specific product that enables Cermaq to connect and integrate all of the surrounding machines in the production environment.
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Cermaq chases a modern salmon facility
“A modern salmon facility takes in the fish, evaluates quality, weight, grading etc. and during all processes automatically determines which department the fish should go to,” said Bjørnar Torsnes, CEO, CodeIT.
“Once we introduce truly interconnected intelligence to these processes we can create efficiency at several orders of magnitude higher than was previously capable. For example, calculating the appropriate ice dosing for different geographical locations of shipments.”
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