Intense Partnership for dry products in Romania: Florea Grup chooses MCT Italy

Within its growing process Florea Grup has been looking for stable and long-term relationships with its partners, accurately selecting the suppliers for new projects. 2018 marked the starting milestone for an intense business partnership with MCT Italy S.r.l.

26 years Florea Grup

This year, Florea Grup turns 26 years old. Over a quarter of a century since the foundations of the business were laid, which today has become one of the most important companies in Romania.

From two people, Florea Group has grown to over 800 employees. Through its products and services, Florea Group has responded to the needs of thousands of customers throughout the country. Because only in this way the development ambitions are ever greater, and the energy and tenacity to fulfil them are present at every step. The 26 years were fulfilled thanks to solid partnerships, both with the company‘s employees and with customers and suppliers in each field of activity.

In an economic environment with many barriers and countless uncertainties, launching a business is a challenge, but keeping it profitable for so many years is a real achievement.

Many company pillars

Currently, the company carries out the following activities and services in order to ensure continuity of customer and consumer satisfaction:

Precast concrete Elements,

Ready mix Concrete, produced in the concrete batching plants in Cluj-Napoca, Sibiu, Alba Iulia and Deva,

Asphalt mixes: Florea Group has invested in a modern plant for the preparation and production of asphalt mixtures,

Aggregates: The quarry aggregates are mined locally in the Apuseni Mountains area. They control the extraction process from explosion to delivery, ensuring that their products are of the highest quality available on the market Their quarry, together with the construction division, allows to offer a complete solution for laying asphalt,

Auto fuel: It is carried out through the eleven modern fuel distribution stations,

Hotel services: It is the newest field in which Florea Grup has made large investments, through the purchase and complete renovation of the Transilvania Hotel and building in its own direction the complex Restautant Astoria Hotel.

Successful partnership with MCT Italy

Within its growing process, Florea Grup has been looking for stable and long-term relationships with its partners, accurately selecting the suppliers for new projects. 2018 marked the starting milestone for an intense business partnership with MCT Italy S.r.l.

The design-build approach, as well as the considerable engineering strength of MCT represented the best platform to outline what became the heart of the new investments planned by Florea throughout Romania.

Eng. Alessandro DiCesare, Area Manager for MCT comments: „After challenging and yet fruitful development process, our team came up with a design base for a sustainable and repeatable layout for the batching plants which would have fed several different factories throughout the country, taking into consideration the variabilities of the locations, the traffic pattern, the overall layout, as well as the flexibility required for the production range required in the different factories. The great result was possible thanks to the deep synergy established between our Engineering department and Florea technical team, which worked together as one to develop the optimal solution which was then installed with success in three different factories already. The care of every detail and the continuous improvement efforts were the keys to achieve the target of designing a repeatable plant configuration (of this size and capacity) capable of fulfilling such different requirements, which is unprecedented in MCT’s over 55 years of experience in the precast concrete industry”.

Automation of the whole concrete production plants

The design of the plant combines structures made out of concrete for the aggregates storage and the steel structures for the rest of the process, including automatic aggregates loading and dosing. The mixing platform is then fully integrated in the production building to feed the production machine.

Innovative components dosing is performed by moving scales, running in the tunnel under the aggregates compartments, properly designed to hold batches of variable size and of different components, such as aggregates, special powders, pigments and admixtures to then convey to the mixing station via skip hoists.

The mixing group has been customised, with particular attentions to the Face Mix line, to achieve the best homogeneity of the batch with planetary mixers, featuring special mixing tools which ensure the quality required by the high standards at Florea.

Also, the production machine feeding involves custom conveyor belts shuttling to create the required feeding pattern for the architectural effects in the machine hopper, and flying buckets to feed the off-line production spots for different products.

The automation of the whole concrete production plants and distribution systems is managed by the MCT’s CompuNet platform, which guarantees the perfect control of the customised hardware under one single hat, streamlining the troubleshooting process, as well as optimising the operations of such personalized process.

Solutions developed together

„The great potential of this relationship with MCT is represented by the continuous support as well as the complete openness to providing solutions worked out together“, says Marcel Florea, General Manager at Florea Grup ‘combining the long-term vision of our operations and plans, with the huge experience of MCT in handling design challenges and plant management, including automation. The standard configuration worked out for our plants is a great goal considering the different demands of the factories, and this also gives us the ability of operating the same systems, simplifying the operations of personnel training, spare parts handling, and achievement of performances’.

This winning configuration has been already put into operation in three factories in strategic locations around Romania (in Ploiesti, Arad and Roman), feeding versatile factories producing a wide range of products, from blocks, pavers, pipes, concrete utility products. The production demands are in consistent development, and running such flexible plants, yet still standardized between the locations, is a great asset for Florea Grup to be one of the best suppliers of concrete products in Eastern Europe.