De Doncker set for growth with new state-of-the-art production plant in Belgium

De Doncker bvba supplies a versatile range of materials for structural work. The company has built a reputation as a building materials trader, which also produces wide slabs. In addition, there is a small production unit for beams and columns, as an extra service for existing customers. De Doncker has been doing business in the concrete industry from Roosdaal for more than 95 years. The Belgian company has always considered it important to serve customers with a full range and has therefore recently started the production of concrete walls. With a brand-new production facility and a state-of-the-art production carousel and concrete plant, the company is now able to serve East Flanders, West Flanders, Walloon Brabant, Wallonia, and part of Antwerp smoothly.

D-Beton focuses on larger projects and greater dimensions

D-Beton is a sister company of De Doncker bvba, with the majority of shares held by the owners, and makes it possible to diversify production and to absorb the excess demand that currently exists. It is situated in Aalst, which is centrally located in Flanders. Part of the production of the wide slabs has been transferred from Roosdaal to Aalst. D-Beton also produces insulated double walls and XL wide slabs and therefore focuses on larger projects and dimensions.

Partnership with Progress Group

De Doncker chose Ebawe Anlagentechnik, Progress Software Development and Progress Maschinen & Automation, all subsidiaries of the Progress Group, as its suppliers. Indeed, the Belgian company uses a whole range of Progress Group machines and software in its production. Once all the technical and commercial details had been clarified, assembly began in Aalst in summer 2020.

According to Dominique Zyde, responsible manager at D-Beton, the current market situation is quite good, and the company does not have any problems with orders and the production sites are fully utilized as well. Even though it is difficult to estimate, given the circumstances, works have progressed well. Mr. Zyde provides project support for the construction of the new location to produce precast concrete elements in Aalst. The assignment consisted of selecting the various suppliers and contractors, preparing the works, following up on the works on the site, commissioning, and starting up the entire company. The new production site is working very hard to ensure short response times, being able to react quickly and manufacturing standard products for the construction market. They supply a wide range of customers, from small contractors building small apartments to main contractors on the top level constructing office buildings or parking garages.

Automation and innovative technology by the new carousel system

The scope of delivery includes a Form Master shuttering robot in combination with a fully automated pallet cleaning device. With the new pallet carousel system, D-Beton is taking another important step towards full automation of precast element production. The workflow has been optimized through a thorough planning of all product flows in the plant.

In addition, the new production line includes a concrete spreader in a bridge design complete with compaction equipment and interface to a fully automated mixing plant as well as a turning device with appropriate compaction equipment. The plant is also equipped with an automated pallet stacker, which, in combination with a demolding crane with demolding traverse, ensures the safe removal of the finished precast elements. An interesting feature of the demolding crane is that not only the usual lattice girder floors can be lifted but also double walls both in the horizontal and vertical position. Although D-Beton is also highly committed to manual quality control, the automation of the plant saves a lot of time and, thanks to the perfectly planned use of the space, can handle possible production issues swiftly by switching to alternative routes. The new production system guarantees an automated precast production of double walls, insulated double walls and floor slabs. The precast elements manufactured there are primarily used in housing and industrial construction. The plant also includes a master office with an optimized visual axis, which makes it possible to watch and monitor the entire production process.

Optimizing reinforcement preparation

Reinforcement processing was optimized by integrating the Wire Center. It comprises the multi-strand MSR 16/6 multi-rotor wire straightening and cutting machine, which permits fully automated wire diameter changes in just a few seconds, thus enabling all wire diameters to be provided just in time. Together with this, a wire laying robot with semi-automatic feed with (for the time being) externally sourced lattice girders ensures a wider range. Further features of the Wire Center include an automatic sorting and feeding system for plastic spacers, a bending machine for crimping the ends of the bars on one or both sides, as well as a magazine serving as a deposit and buffer storage for the bars which can be retrieved from the system and lifted onto the pallet automatically as needed.

Complete software solution with Ebos and Stabos

D-Beton chose ebos as its MES system, developed by Progress Software Development, also a Progress Group company. With ebos, all manufacturing processes are carried out in a single complete, user-friendly system. An innovative 3D visualization of the carousel plant makes it even easier to keep an eye on production. Machine and production data can be easily collected and evaluated with the integrated stabos software. Thanks to the unique web interface, analyzing and reporting for the whole carousel plant can be done from anywhere.

Dominique Zyde is very satisfied with the new production plant: “We cooperated very closely with our supplier. Progress has demonstrated a high level of efficiency. They developed an innovative production process to respond to all our needs. The quickness of their reaction was definitely a decisive factor.”

Thanks to the new production plant from the Progress Group, the Belgian company is able to make its product range more flexible. They are now producing a larger number of finished products to a high quality standard and with less manpower.