A new aluminum anodizing line

UAB Galvanta installed and started up a new, automated anodising line. The launch of the new line is a significant advance for the company’s operations.

The company greatly increased its capacity for ZnNi plating.

Now ZnNi plating, the black or transparent for the different configuration of parts can be performed in the barrels or on the racks.

The company actively participates in international trade fairs. One such fair is the Subcontracting 2022 fair in Poland. The company’s technologies for ZnNi plating and anodising attracted a lot of attention. Renata Roubo – Gaidys, the Head of marketing at UAB Galvanta, says that “step by step, we are moving into the attractive Polish market, and we are already receiving and fulfilling orders from there.”

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UAB Baltec CNC Technologies: active digitalisation and robotisation

Evaldas Rimša, CEO of UAB Baltec CNC Technologies, says that the company is operating successfully: growth in turnover has returned to its pre-pandemic level and shipments of products. The company’s turnover in 2021 amounted to 5,580,060 euro.
Seeking to increase efficiency, the company is actively working toward digitalisation and robotisation. 4 new collaborative robots have been installed at UAB Baltec CNC Technologies, and it is planned to purchase another 2-3 in the near future. One of the most important competitive advantages of a digitalization is the opportunity to monitor production operations in real time. If an interruption in the production occurs, the production team is able to take immediate action to solve the problem, thus ensuring the most effective operation.
The parts produced by UAB Baltec CNC Technologies are used in the automotive, machinery manufacturing, energy and other industrial sectors.
The company’s main operations are milling and turning using modern programmable (CNC) machine tools.
Most of the company’s production is exported to Western Europe: Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands.

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The production of more than 20 new filter models

UAB Baltic Filter has recently found new markets in Italy and Germany, and has begun producing more than 20 new products. The company creates, designs, tests and launches new products based on the changing demand of the market. At present, it has more than 2500 different variants of air, fuel, oil and cabin filters for passenger cars, trucks and other off-highway machinery.

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AB Astra LT presented the innovative Advanced Road Tanker, featuring exceptional capabilities

AB Astra LT presented its innovative Advanced Road Tanker at the Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Centre LITEXPO on 27 May. The road tanker is made of stainless steel with exceptional features, designed for transporting liquid food products.

The AB Astra LT team, in cooperation with members of FTD LT (Food Technologies Digitalization LT) and BACC (Baltic Automotive Components Cluster) and other partners, having performed R&D in search of new solutions to the problem of safe road transport of liquid food products, has developed a new, lighter-weight and especially-well-insulated road tanker. During the event, potential partners from Lithuania and abroad were invited to see with their own eyes the new road tanker and the opportunities it offers to the food industry.

The event was organised in cooperation with the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (in Lithuanian, MITA). The opening speech was delivered by Dr Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Lithuania.

The event was moderated by the Chairman of the Board of BACC, Giedrius Valuckas, who expressed his firm support for the successful project. “On behalf of the FTD LT cluster and the Baltic Automotive Components Cluster, I would like to express our great pleasure with the presentation of this prototype of a truly exceptional product, the Advanced Road Tanker, designed to transport hot or refrigerated food products over long distances. The team of researchers and innovators at AB Astra LT has proven that we have enormous engineering potential right here in Lithuania, and we are able to create cutting-edge prototypes, manufacture them, and successfully bring them to market. Forecasts for international sales of the road tanker are bright, and we, the FTD LT and BACC clusters, will actively contribute to publicising and promoting sales of the new road tanker. The arrival of the new road tanker in the market will further strengthen AB Astra LT’s positions not only in Lithuania, but in export markets, too.”

An innovative product for the European market

From 2019 to 2021, AB Astra LT continuously worked on developing the new, especially-well-insulated road tanker, lighter than competing road tankers, for transporting liquid food products over long distances. The process of developing, producing and certifying the road tanker was completed last year, and this year pre-serial production is planned, to improve the manufacturing process. A little later, it is planned to start serial production.

According to Vaidas Liesionis, PhD, Chairman of the Board of the FTD LT cluster and General Manager of AB Astra LT, the road tanker is made of advanced Lean Duplex stainless steel. Until now, such stainless steel has not been used in the production of road tankers for transporting liquid food products, due to the complexity of working such stainless steel and especially due to the difficulty of welding such stainless steel. The AB Astra LT team overcame all these problems, creating and applying the necessary technologies for automated welding and post-welding processing, and the working of the advanced stainless steel no longer presents any difficulties.

Made of steel with exceptional properties

The new product features exceptional properties. The Duplex steel is perfectly suited for transporting or holding any liquid food products, including acidic (corrosive) food products or ingredients, for which austenitic steel cannot be used.

Such steel also has a yield strength (one of the most important mechanical properties of steel) twice as high as others, so the 3-section, 30m3-volume road tanker prototype is relatively light, weighing only 6,130 kg. Road tankers presently available on the market that are used to transport hot liquid products usually include a heating system, but this increases vehicle weight and reduces the cargo load capacity. In addition, the principle of using less insulation and compensating for the resulting heat loss by burning diesel in a heating system is not a sustainable solution. The same can be said for transporting refrigerated products, where it is essential to ensure that the temperature of such products does not increase beyond a certain limit.

The new road tanker is exceptionally well-insulated with a 110-mm-thick layer of next-generation monolithic polyurethane foam insulation, so its thermal conductivity is especially low, only 360W/m2K. The insulation level of the new road tanker produced by AB Astra LT is such that, after pouring into the road tanker 27 tonnes of chocolate at a temperature of +90 °C, the chocolate can be transported or simply stored for 11 days at an outdoor temperature of -20 °C without risk of the chocolate congealing, because after 11 days the chocolate will remain at a temperature of not less than +45 °C and can still be pumped.

In summertime, at an outdoor temperature of +20 °C, the same amount of hot chocolate (27 tonnes) requires 23 days to cool to a temperature of +45 °C. In addition, the excellent insulation properties allow the road tanker to be used not only as a vehicle for moving heated products, but also as a container for temporary storage at the client’s facility.

Getting ready for serial production

The factory is now preparing for serial production of the road tanker, and the new vehicle is already being used in test runs to transport liquid food products (oil, cream and so on).

The factory located in Alytus is one of the longest-operating metalworking companies in Lithuania. In addition, AB Astra LT today is one of the largest metalworking companies in Lithuania, designing and producing stainless-steel tanks and pressure vessels for use in the food, chemical and oil industries, well-known throughout the region as well as across Europe.

AB Astra LT exports its production to various countries. More than 85 per cent of its production is shipped to buyers in Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the USA and other countries.

Attention to potential partners in Lithuania and abroad

During the event, Liesionis presented in detail the process of developing and producing the Advanced Road Tanker and highlighted the excellent results of the cooperation between AB Astra LT and researchers at the Lithuanian Energy Institute (LEI) and the Kaunas University of Technology (KTU).

Presentations were made by Andrius Vilkauskas, PhD, Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Design at KTU, and by Rimantas Levinskas, PhD, head of the Material Research and Testing Laboratory at

LEI.

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AB Astra LT presented its new product, the Advanced Road Tanker!

On Friday, at LITEXPO, AB Astra LT presented its new product, the Advanced Road Tanker!

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Lithuania, welcomed the audience to the presentation. Giedrius Valuckas, Chairman of the Board of BACC and Member of the Presidium of LINPRA, moderated the Event.

Vaidas Liesionis, PhD, General Director of AB Astra LT and Chairman of the Board of FTD LT, presented the idea behind the Advanced Road Tanker and the process through which it was developed and produced.

AB Astra LT, operating in Alytus, with help from a team of scientists and engineers, has developed and produced a remarkable product, the Advanced Road Tanker for the food industry. The new tanker can transport liquid food products, such as chocolate, cream, oil, and similar things, maintaining the required temperature. The Advanced Road Tanker is a significant breakthrough in the tanker market due to its special features, including impeccable insulation, low weight, high-quality materials such as Duplex stainless steel, and so on. The tanker is expected to be a great success not only in Lithuania, but also in world markets, as it is an innovative product with no equivalent competing products at the present time.

Andrius Vilkauskas, PhD, Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Design at Kaunas University of Technology, spoke on the topic “Innovation – the key to increasing the competitiveness of cluster products”. Rimantas Levinskas, PhD, Head of the R&D Transfer Centre of the Lithuanian Energy Institute, presented a case study of AB Astra LT and LEI, and expressed great satisfaction with the result of that cooperation: the innovative Advanced Road Tanker.

Afterwards, the guests and participants in the event discussed the many opportunities to use the Advanced Road Tanker in their companies’ activities.

We wish AB Astra LT success in entering new markets!

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New BACC Board members

Please meet new BACC Board members!

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AB “Astra LT”: the new 20-metre-tall experimental production laboratory

The new 20-metre-tall experimental production laboratory will help AB “Astra LT” write another page in its history. The investment of approximately 6 million euro will enable the company to produce stainless steel storage tanks of an especially large dimensions. This will make the Alytus-based company even more competitive in the Baltic region, explains CEO Vaidas Liesonis.

According to the CEO, the manufacturer of stainless steel tanks and pressure vessels for the food, chemicals and oil industries has in recent years received customer inquiries about making large storage tanks, pressure vessels and mixing equipment.

In the past, for example, dairy companies might have ordered 50-cubic-metre storage tanks, but now it is not unusual for a milk processor to order storage tanks three or four times larger, with a volume of up to 150 or 200 cubic metres.

Noticing the evolving needs of customers, the company also saw an opportunity.

“Many manufacturers are not able to produce storage tanks with a diameter of 6 metres,” the CEO explains, speaking of a niche he noticed several years ago.

The new experimental production laboratory, in cooperation with the Lithuanian Energy Institute, as with a reliable Astra’s LT scientific partner in R&D activities, and will have the capability of development and production large-dimension storage tanks, ant reactors with or without integrated heat exchange and mixing equipment.

The CEO says, “This will be a big step forward.”

According to Liesonis, R&D is an especially important activity, because the company makes custom-made products and has to devise its own solutions.

The CEO gives an example. “A customer says, ‘I need a reactor tank, where I will mix three different components. Each of them has a different level of chemical aggressiveness. And we will pour these materials – acidic, alkaline – in such-and-such proportions, and in 53 minutes we will heat them from this temperature to that temperature. Can you design a heat exchanger that will heat up like this?’”

The ability to offer one-of-a-kind products is one of the company’s greatest advantages, which creates a lot of opportunities, says Liesonis.

The company receives most of its orders from customers in Baltic and Scandinavian countries. The company recently shipped goods valued at 4 million euro to Sweden, where it is meeting orders related to construction of a chemical factory applied for automotive equipment production.

Observing possible competitors in the region, Liesonis remarks that from now on, “Astra” will be especially competitive. His data indicates that there are no companies with equivalent capabilities in the neighbouring countries. The nearby competitors are only able to manufacture analogous products of smaller dimensions.

Testing a new product

Last year the company completed the process of creating, manufacturing and certifying a new product, a road tanker semi-trailer prototype for liquid food products.

The new road tanker boasts good insulation, and is made using Duplex stainless steel. At present, the road tanker prototype is being used by potential future customers to transport liquid food products, such as cream, oil and so on.

“The company is beginning production of the first three road tankers for commercial sale, and we expect to start serial production of the road tanker in the near future,” the CEO says.

More expensive metal has not impacted production

At present, the company has orders for the next 5–6 months.

A total of about 500 separate products are manufactured each year. Of these, 250 are for different designs.

Last year, the company’s turnover was 21.7 million euro. That was 10.6% more than the year before last, when turnover was 19.6 million euro.

Last year, the company earned a profit of 2.1 million euro, while its profit in 2020 was 2.377 million euro.

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UAB Arginta Engineering invests in the Panevėžys FEZ

By 2023, Arginta Engineering UAB intends to construct, in the Panevėžys free economic zone, a factory with up to 100 jobs in the first development stage and with up to 300 in the following few years. New jobs will be created for programmable machine operators, welders and production workers of other professions as well as apprentices.

EUR 15 million are planned to be invested in the construction of the new factory including EUR 5 million in Stage 1. Three development stages are projected. The estimated area of Arginta Engineering’s factory is 15,000 square metres. Modern production, office and amenity premises will be fitted out.

For the convenience of employees, a new parking lot for both conventional and electric cars, with charging stations for the latter, will be provided at the factory.

The company has stated that the new production building will be used for the manufacture of intermediate products to be supplied to factories in Finland and Vilnius where finished products will be assembled and tested. Equipment produced by the company will be continued to be designed in Vilnius.

Arginta Engineering provides the services of producing equipment and machines for world-renowned companies. Approx. 400 people are employed by the factories in Lithuania and Finland. On completion of all the development phases, internal production processes will be optimised and the estimated total turnover of both factories should reach EUR 60 million.

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Astra LT has manufactured a prototype of an advanced road tanker

Astra LT has designed and built a prototype of a new tanker for long-distance transport of hot or refrigerated food products. The new product offers the following distinctive features:

– the 30 m3 three-section tanker is really light, weighing 6,130 kg;

– the tanker is exceptionally well-insulated, with a 110-mm-thick layer of next-generation polyurethane foam resulting in an extremely low thermal conductivity of k=0.360W/m2K;

– the tanker is made of the new Duplex 1.4162 stainless steel, which is well-suited for the transport or storage of any liquid food product, including aggressive (corrosive) foodstuffs or food components for which austenitic AISI304L or AISI316L stainless steels are not suitable;

– Duplex steel also features very sturdy mechanical properties, which allowed the prototype to be made relatively lightweight and permitted a further reduction of the weight of the tanker.

The lower weight of the tanker allows for a larger quantity of product to be loaded. For transport of hot products, tankers currently on the market are usually equipped with an additional heating system, but this increases the weight of the vehicle and reduces the permissible load. In addition, the very principle of using less insulation and compensating for the resulting heat loss by burning additional diesel is not sustainable. Astra LT’s new tanker has a level of insulation such that, after filling the tank with 27 t of chocolate heated to +90 °C, it can be transported or simply stored for 11 days at -20 °C without any risk of the product congealing, because after 11 days the chocolate will remain at least +45 °C and will still be able to be pumped. In summer, at an outdoor temperature of +20 °C, the same amount of hot chocolate (27 t) will take 23 days to cool to +45 °C. In fact, the excellent insulation allows the tanker to be used not only as a vehicle for transporting a hot product, but also as a container for short-term storage at the customer’s premises.

The prototype has been fully completed, an expert examination has been performed and the tanker has been authorised for vehicle registration. The factory is currently preparing to manufacture the new product, is coordinating technical details with partners, and expects to start production in the near future.

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Automotive Supplier Summit 2021

Last week Darius Lasionis, Executive Director of the Baltic Automotive Components Cluster (BACC), participated in the Automotive Supplier Summit 2021, held in the German city of Wolfsburg.

During the event, challenges and trends in the automotive sector were discussed. Several aspects were identified, which are especially relevant at the present time: how to remain competitive and how to face the challenges of the New Mobility Era. The idea was proposed that purchasing must be a central success factor for achieving corporate sustainability goals.

Participants also devoted much attention to analysing disruptions of the raw materials and components supply chains, while at the same time emphasising that new and significantly stricter requirements for manufacturers and suppliers are emerging.

One of the most important trends is that major companies plan to select their suppliers, or review their lists of existing suppliers, according to certain criteria, and will demand from suppliers such things as an internal Code of Ethics and Sustainability. It is very important to global automotive companies that suppliers be socially responsible. Suppliers will be encouraged to observe Green Economy principles, and criteria such as a company’s CO2 emission ranking will arise. This is a new challenge, but at the same time presents new opportunities for Lithuanian companies. It is well worth paying attention and preparing now. All of the above-mentioned points will not be put into practice very quickly; rather, they will gradually come into force as more and more companies implement their company policies according to these criteria and requirements, and simultaneously demand the same from their own suppliers and partners.

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