Belgium’s biscuit and pastry manufacturer Poppies International has installed a line comprising an Ishida CCW-R-108P linear multihead weigher with a distribution system that helps handle both trays and bags of biscuits.
It also installed an Ishida DACS checkweigher and IX-GA 4075 X-ray system for weight and quality checks.
This was facilitated through Ishida Europe’s Belgian agent BRN.
The Ishida multihead weigher is achieving 50 packs per minute on a typical 125g tray.
Accuracy is to within 0.5g and overall the weigher is delivering an efficiency level in excess of 95% for this challenging product and application.
Poppies manufactures sugar-glazed puff pastry biscuits in two shapes – Twists and Palmiers.
Besides its brand, the company produces the biscuits for many national and international retailers.
This equates to around six pack formats, both trays and bags, in a range of sizes from 75g to 400g.
As a result, during a typical shift, the company might need to effect up to seven changeovers.
The new BRN/Ishida system enables these changeovers to be carried out in 15 minutes due to two factors.
The linear configuration of the Ishida weigher allows two distribution systems to sit comfortably beneath the weigher.
A BRN-designed tray denester feeds the trays to two dipping funnels that place the biscuits into the trays.
These can be changed for a second funnel that places the biscuits into individual compartments on a conveyor which takes them to a bagmaker.
The three Ishida machines installed in the facility are all controlled by a control unit, allowing the settings for every pack format on each machine to be easily called up by the touch of a button on the panel.
“Before the X-ray, the biscuits would pass through a metal detector immediately after coming out of the oven,” says Poppies’ quality control, as production manager Geert Vandoorne.
“Nevertheless, the packing operation involves a number of additional pieces of equipment, so it was more appropriate for the metal detector to be placed further down the line.”
“This however created another problem as some of the trays feature aluminum foil seals, while the bags are tied with a metal clip, and these factors would prevent the metal detector from operating properly.”
By comparison Ishida’s X-ray system is able to detect unwanted objects through metallized film, and its advanced technology can also mask the metal clip on the bags without reducing the detection performance of foreign bodies.
Missing or additional clips are also identified.
In addition, the IX-GA 4075 can spot a wider range of contaminants and locate any foreign object despite the fact that the biscuits are quite densely packed in the bags and trays.
The installation of the Ishida DACS checkweigher has also helped to improve overall efficiencies.
“Previously operators simply checked the fill level of the trays or bags by sight to assess if the correct amount was in each pack,” explains Geert.
“But this led to excessive giveaway on occasions. Now we can be confident that every pack is close to its target weight.”
Efficiency in action
The new line at Poppies incorporates the company’s existing bagmaker, flow wrapper and boxing machine with BRN supplying the three new Ishida machines along with transfer conveyors and elevators.
After baking, the biscuits are taken on an inclined conveyor through a ventilation system that cools them down before being transferred to a bucket elevator to take them to the linear mulithead weigher.
The line includes a buffering system for the biscuits.
If there is a problem further down the packing line, the feed conveyor to the bucket elevator goes into a backward and forward motion in order to collect the biscuits and hold them at this stage.
This gives time for the problem to be fixed and, if it is likely to take a long time, production can be halted.
Once the line is restarted, the biscuits are gradually re-fed to the bucket elevator.
Another innovation is the BRN-designed tray denester that uses suction pads to remove each tray from the stack and place it on the conveyor.
This ensures gentle handling that will not deform the lightweight trays.
