A quarter million eggs per hour through a machine. That has to be done burr-free.

Barneveld is known for its poultry farming. As the name-giver of the Barnevelder chicken breed, with the weekly egg market (where the national price of eggs is still determined) and the Dutch Poultry Museum within its borders, it has a deserved reputation. And yes, on the motorway near Barneveld there is that big egg in the meadow. In 1947, it was ideal ground for Job Mosterd to start egg grading machine manufacturer MoBa (Mosterd Barneveld). Now a multinational company with 800 employees.

Today, egg sorting machines are complete industrial solutions, knows Martin Teunissen, manager manufacturing at Moba. “From sorting to packaging,” he explains. The latest model, the Omnia XF2, processes a quarter of a million pieces per hour. The egg is picked up from a step, placed on the machine, individually checked for breakage, weight, colour and then packed. Do the eggs not break? “No. Our strength lies in handling an egg in an efficient, safe, hygienic and fast way.”

All-round

A large part of the machinery is stainless steel sheet metal. “At Moba we have our own manufacturing department, where we cut stainless steel parts and structural parts in sheet metal ourselves. Because we want to supply our customers with nicely rounded and directionless sheet metal, we need a good machine. That is why we have two 42 RB series from Timesavers in our flow, so that we can deliver perfectly and our customers don’t cut themselves on our sheet metal,” says Teunissen.

The machines have been set up to work as efficiently as possible: it is a continuous process, where the products flow through the line. You no longer have to go from behind the machine to the front to further process your products.

The 42 RB series is an all-round deburring machine, which is equipped as standard with a good sticking mat with vacuum, and can be equipped with an additional number of up to 3 wide belt or brush units. It has a multi-rotating brush unit with eight brushes that deburr and round off evenly around the edges of the metal. This makes it possible to achieve a radius of 2 mm on mild steel and even more on softer materials such as aluminium.

For Moba, the tool life of the brushes was very important. Teunissen: “What is the cost of a machine hour? What is the total cost of ownership? And how long will the brushes last? I would already be satisfied with 1000 machine hours per brush set. In the end, it turns out to be 3400. So the TCO is very low. We thought we would have to replace the conveyor belts every few years. The reality is that the conveyor belts have been there since the beginning. Even after twelve years.”

Christmas reception

Moba and Timesavers have a long-standing relationship. Timesavers has been supplying the Barneveld-based company for over twenty years. “The relationship has always been very good. They offer us the right service and answer our production questions. So we also see that over the years their product has grown along with their business, especially linked to the customer’s wishes. For example, we first had a disc machine and a pre-grinder from Timesavers. In 2009, we asked Timesavers if they could help us get a better edge round of the sheet metal. So they came up with a deburring machine that used the brush principle.”

“Moba was one of my first customers,” says Peter de Regt. He is responsible for Timesavers’ sales in the Netherlands. “There was a Grindingmaster machine – that’s how Timesavers was previously named – and they wanted a better solution. They were already doing 500 tonnes of stainless steel sheet work a year at the time. Our solution was a disc machine. A wet work machine with a disc. It did well, but after a few years Moba’s customers wanted even better edge rounding.”

De Regt and Timesavers were just working on a prototype deburring machine, which has now become the 42 RB series. During the Christmas reception in 2008, people from Moba came to watch a demonstration in Goes at Timesavers. “I saw the smile on their faces and I knew it was good. In September 2009, we delivered the first two machines.”

To go from wet to dry is a big step for many customers, De Regt knows. “They fear dust. And they wonder what the cost of the grinding parts will be. We didn’t know that at the time, as these were the first machines on the market. So for years I went to Moba every month to measure the brushes. So it turns out that they easily last 3300 hours. And wear points on the mat? The first machine was used for 20,000 hours and the mat is still there.

Are there further innovations to come? “The developments continue, because the customers are demanding more and more. You need to get to a radius faster, the power needs to be lower, energy needs to be used more efficiently, and user-friendliness needs to be improved. And it turns out that customers like to see a machine with a modern look. Apparently, the the look is also important.”

Sustainable

Harry van Beek has been a laser operator and team leader at Moba for twenty years. He removes the lasered products and deburrs them with the Timesavers 42 RB series. He knows the ‘predecessor’ of the current deburring machine. “It seems to go automatically. We have set the machine to a thickness. We use it for 3 mm, but also for 2, 1.5 and 1 mm. It runs fine. You can see that the result is good. The product number, with which the customer can see what part it is, remains visible, while the rest of the sheet is nice and smooth. That is truly special.”

Van Beek still checks the end products manually, for sharp edges. “The wet grinder that we had before, was less satisfactory. The current 42 RB series works perfectly. I think we have only had four breakdowns in twelve years of use. So to be honest, we rarely have any contact with Timesavers during production. We simply don’t need to. We replace the rotating brushes ourselves, but they have been in there for over two years now. The conveyor belt is the first belt. It’s such a durable machine, even though it runs eight hours a day. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the nicest machine I’ve had up to now.”