The story of Betca began in 1979, under the leadership of the late Francis Van Campenhout, with the production of concrete floor slabs. Over the years, the company has grown into a specialist in custom-made prefabricated concrete elements. Their customers are mainly large contractors in the Benelux. Thanks to their drive and specialization in customization, Betca enjoys a solid reputation that they have built up over the years. In order to complete their range and to strengthen their position on the market, Marc Van Campenhout, current manager of Betca, and Frederik Cornelis managing director, decided to proceed with the construction of new production halls for the manufacturing of prestressed concrete elements up to 45 m long and with a maximum weight up to 64 tons.
The concrete and reinforcement of Betca have the Benor quality label. Moreover, they work according to the guidelines of the internal Care and Quality System. The CE marking on all products indicates that Betca consistently manufactures products that meet customer requirements, relevant standards and regulations.
After the investment and startup of the production unit for pre-stressed columns and beams the logical next step was the purchase of a concrete plant.
Betca’s demand to Bton, Belgian representative of the Italian company MCT and represented by Bert Cooreman, was threefold:
- automatic delivery of concrete to the various halls,
- delivery of different concrete compositions (both self-compacting and traditional) and
- one person responsible for the supply of the aggregates and cement, concrete production and distribution of the concrete.
The MCT technical department, headed by Eng. Fabio Mearelli, studied a special batching plant inside the existing warehouse, aligning the costumer’s request with the available space.
The plant itself comprises of drive-over receiving hopper where the lorries discharge their materials and these are then taken via a bucket elevator to the aggregate storage hoppers. The materials are then distributed into the correct compartment through a reversible shuttle belt, and all of these functions are controlled by the MCT Aggregate Feeding system, which runs independently from the main control system.
Six aggregate hoppers with a capacity of 50 m3 each, 300 m3 in total, then receive the materials, and these are monitored via laser probes to ensure the precise volumes are both checked for materials used and materials being properly discharged when filled from the aggregate feeding system.
When the plant operator then calls for a mix, the materials are collected by MCT’s Mobile Aggregate weigh batcher, capacity of 3,8 m3, the ‘mobile scale’ travels under each compartment and receives the correct material volume, it also allows the materials to be discharged in any order allowing ‘premix’ of material prior to arriving in the mixer. There were several reasons why this was used over a conventional batching / weigh belt arrangement. Primary reasons were a greater accuracy of materials being weighed, a lower investment costs, elimination of material spillage but also for the flexibility, the batching plant in effect is predisposed to add two more aggregates bins 50 m3 each.
The “mobile scale” discharge the aggregates directly into the mixer skip hoist by gravity, minimizing the cycle time. Upon the mixer platform are the normal components such as cement weighing, water distribution, admix & dust extraction.
The planetary mixer type OMG PM3750/2500 guarantees a high mixing efficiency for all types of concrete.
The Betca company has always put first the quality of concrete. Therefore, the investment needed for the installation is fully justified thanks to the mixer that guarantees the consistency and homogeneity of the high-quality concrete produced. This definitely strengthens Betca’s already excellent reputation in the Belgium market. The plant allows new product lines in the future as there are: coloured concrete and elements with exposed aggregates.
The concrete distribution system, developed by MCT Italy for Betca stands out for its flexibility, reliability and efficiency and it comprises:
- one four-wheel drive flying bucket running on inclined rails of 3.500 liters capacity and up to 240 m/min speed,
- 100 m of flying bucket rails,
- three units of automatic casting machine of 3.500 liters capacity and 360° rotation and fully integrated system through industrial optic fiber Wi-Fi signal exchange.
The software is the heartbeat of the batching plant and it guarantees the complete monitoring of the production processes as well as the complete production report. The CompuNet® system, developed by MCT Italy Software Development, consistently accompanies all the aspects of the production process and concrete distribution system.
The CompuNet, is a software developed specifically for the precast concrete industry, with the aim of managing the planning and control of all business and production processes – starting from materials management, through production, concrete distribution and project management.
Eng. Luca Cellini, International Sales Manager of MCT Italy, points out:
“The batching plant installed at Betca confirms that our corporate philosophy is successful: listening to our customer’s needs and the development of custom design ensures to find the optimum configurations optimizing the productivity and the efficiency.
The site restrictions and the high customer standards were a fascinating challenge and we can affirm that we are proud of the State-of-the-art plant delivered to Betca in Belgium”.
Bert Cooreman, Sales Manager for MCT in the Benelux, highlights:
“Thanks to the high degree of flexibility during the engineering phase, we are able to work out a project that meets 100% of the expectations. A strong advantage is that the software is fully developed in-house. This guarantees a smooth start-up, good communication and a fast and adequate after-sales service. Installing a complete plant at Betca has put MCT back on the map in the Benelux.”
The Betca Prefab Beton Director, Frederik Cornelis, affirms:
“We sincerely appreciate MCT Italy as one-stop supplier and we are sure that a long partnership has begun. This important partnership can help us to reinforce our goal: to be recognized as a quality manufacturer and an innovator of precast concrete solutions globally. Our inner aim is to attain profitable growth through setting the highest standards in service, quality, safety and cost containment in our industry”.
