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30 MACHINERY UPDATE JULY/AUGUST 2018 www.mac<strong>hi</strong>neryupdate.co.uk<br />
Installation News<br />
Checkweighers ensure<br />
spuds comply at speed<br />
To cope <strong>with</strong> compliance<br />
issues for its frozen<br />
potato processing<br />
production lines operating at<br />
<strong>hi</strong>gher speeds, Lamb Weston/<br />
Meijer has retrofitted five new<br />
Mettler Toledo checkweighers.<br />
The conveyor speed of the<br />
new equipment has been<br />
synchronised to the <strong>hi</strong>gher<br />
throughput rates, and can also<br />
be adapted to accommodate<br />
any further increase in<br />
production w<strong>hi</strong>ch is planned<br />
by the Dutch company by 2020.<br />
And to continue to ensure<br />
conformity, products need<br />
to be reliably checked to<br />
make sure they meet the<br />
requirements of net content<br />
laws for packaged products<br />
and to ensure customer<br />
satisfaction – as well as to<br />
eliminate expensive product<br />
giveaway. The automatic<br />
checkweighers are installed<br />
downstream of a multihead<br />
weigher where Lamb Weston’s<br />
French fries are portioned<br />
before ultimately being packed<br />
into 1kg bags.<br />
The bags are then weighed,<br />
<strong>with</strong> ‘bad’ products being<br />
rejected by a pusher to enable<br />
off-weight products to be<br />
sorted out reliably.<br />
To help t<strong>hi</strong>s process, a light<br />
barrier monitors whether<br />
the rejection of underweight<br />
or overweight products was<br />
successful. If t<strong>hi</strong>s is not the<br />
case, a message is displayed<br />
The 1kg bags are weighed and ‘bad’ products rejected by a special pusher<br />
The plant processes potatoes into French fries and other speciality products<br />
in the info section of the 15in<br />
touchscreen terminal. An<br />
immediate conveyor shutdown<br />
and the activation of a<br />
potential-free contact to warn<br />
the production personnel<br />
allows them to easily remove<br />
‘bad products’ from the ‘good<br />
products’ path and then feed<br />
them back into the production<br />
process in the end.<br />
More than one hundred<br />
employees at the Oosterbierum<br />
plant of Lamb Weston ensure<br />
that potatoes are processed<br />
into <strong>hi</strong>gh-quality pre-fried<br />
frozen French fries and<br />
other potato specialties.<br />
The <strong>hi</strong>gh-tech nature of the<br />
manufacturing process makes<br />
the company’s production<br />
environment very complex, so<br />
the checkweigher design was<br />
adapted to t<strong>hi</strong>s environment.<br />
Due to the small amount of<br />
space available, Lamb Weston<br />
needed a checkweig<strong>hi</strong>ng<br />
solution that had a small<br />
footprint and, at the same<br />
time, was adapted to the<br />
height dimensions of<br />
upstream and downstream<br />
mac<strong>hi</strong>nes. For instance,<br />
the entire checkweig<strong>hi</strong>ng<br />
system has been designed<br />
to a special height to match<br />
the height of the customer’s<br />
production line system.<br />
And to further accommodate<br />
space requirements, the<br />
conveyor control system has<br />
been positioned externally<br />
<strong>with</strong> a separate control cabinet<br />
including the weig<strong>hi</strong>ng<br />
terminal.<br />
The Mettler Toledo<br />
FreeWeigh.Net software<br />
package also allows the<br />
checkweighers to be used<br />
in the integrated production<br />
network for recording<br />
statistical quality data.<br />
The company’s entire<br />
production process can thus<br />
be traced and recorded on item<br />
level as well as on batch level,<br />
and the system facilitates an<br />
accurate overview of current<br />
production data.<br />
In t<strong>hi</strong>s way, Lamb Weston<br />
covers the entire scope of<br />
finished packaging and filling<br />
process checking and can<br />
react faster to any changes in<br />
the production process.<br />
T 0116 235 7070<br />
W www.mt.com<br />
Product changeovers are speedy<br />
Pumps help<br />
hot sauce<br />
accuracy<br />
Germany-based Paradies Eis<br />
is leveraging the benefits of<br />
peristaltic pump technology<br />
from Watson-Marlow Fluid<br />
Technology Group (WMFTG) to<br />
dose hot chocolate sauce into ice<br />
cream. The company is using the<br />
latest 530 peristaltic pumps and<br />
tubing for the reliability that t<strong>hi</strong>s<br />
delicate task requi<strong>res</strong>.<br />
Further benefits delivered to<br />
Paradies Eis include low pump<br />
maintenance requirements,<br />
excellent processing capabilities,<br />
<strong>hi</strong>gh levels of accuracy and easy<br />
operation.<br />
Chocolate has to be dosed at<br />
a temperature of about 60deg C<br />
into the ice cream, where the<br />
liquid mass then hardens again.<br />
At Paradies Eis, peristaltic pumps<br />
are used for t<strong>hi</strong>s task as <strong>with</strong>out<br />
valves, seals or moving parts in<br />
the fluid path, peristaltic pumps<br />
are ideal for operation in hygienic<br />
environments, says WMFTG.<br />
In use, the pumped media only<br />
comes into contact <strong>with</strong> a food<br />
quality tube. Moreover, media<br />
is pumped very gently and <strong>with</strong><br />
extremely low shear forces,<br />
so product quality is never<br />
compromised. Peristaltic<br />
pumps also offer <strong>hi</strong>gh precision<br />
and reproducibility, w<strong>hi</strong>ch<br />
help maximise product<br />
consistency, an important<br />
consideration in ice cream<br />
manufacture.<br />
The Watson-Marlow 500<br />
series runs quietly and evenly<br />
and performs reliably <strong>with</strong> a <strong>hi</strong>gh<br />
degree of accuracy, according to<br />
brand owner Axel Steen.<br />
T 01326 370362<br />
W www.wmftg.co.uk