While food companies have been increasing the levels of automation in their plants, the variety and diversity of products made in their plants dictate that the majority of recipes are made up by manually adding the ingredients to form batches or sub-mixes.
This reliance on the operator's diligence and dexterity to ensure all the ingredients have been added in the correct quantities makes it difficult to achieve recipe consistency and minimise spoilt batches.
UK-based Practicon says its proTrace Hand-Weigh recipe control terminal will help to remove operator related errors and inconsistencies by providing a means of measured control at each step of recipe forumulation.
"The system records irrefutable data for each and every ingredient addition and thereby eliminates the need for traditional paperwork systems and their associated errors and omissions,"the company stated.
ProTrace's computerised format gives plants access to data for internal and external audit trails. The data includes production trends, stock usage, giveaway and other key performance indicators.
The unit is housed in a slim, polished stainless steel enclosure built for food contact. It also features a large industrial computer touch screen and tactile keypad.
The terminal is designed to work with any load cell based weigh scale and can be used with single or dual scale configurations. In dual mode the unit automatically chooses which of the twodifferent capacity scales should be used to provide optimum precision for a particular ingredient.
In its simplest operational mode, the operator can use the two up and down buttons below the screen to work through the recipe build up.
To ease the task of making fast and accurate ingredient weighing, the proTrace features a tri-coloured analogue weight acceptance screen bar. This guides the operator through the ingredientaddition.
The display progresses from an orange underweight zone through to a green acceptance zone and red over-weight zone.
However unlike many other units that provide a standard linear transgression, the screen zooms in as the ingredients to be added approach the target weight, giving a magnified view of theacceptance zone for the recipe. As an additional visual indication, the digital weight display also changes colour in line with the indication bar.
"Trials have shown that operators rapidly tune in to this feature and weighments are consistently well inside the programmed tolerances," ProTrace stated.
proTrace can be used as a standalone workstation, where all recipe information is programmed directly into the unit, or as part of a group of the devices, all linked back via a local area networkto one or more computers running Practicon's software.
The group networked configuration allows several members of the management team to work with the shared databases at any one time. Each person would have access geared to their level ofauthorisation within the network.
In this mode, the proTrace units act as a data interface between the factory floor and management systems. The formulae for particular finished products or sub mixes are entered into the designatedcomputers via the recipe formulation screen.
The system allows management to enter and determine the exact recipe characteristics, including individual ingredient tolerances and how the products are added.
For example recipes may be a mixture of weighed and non-weighed ingredients, where some products are added as pre-weighed blocks or bags, Practicon stated.
Users can also input detailed instructions relating to product characteristics, which are then flagged up at the relevant stage of the process. The feature may be used to highlight that a particular ingredient should be poured in slowly, or it could refer to specific health and safety aspects.
For particular works orders, the system automatically calculates the amounts of individual ingredients needed and downloads the order to the relevant proTrace workstation.
With an optional stock control module installed, the system checks that there are sufficient 'in-date' ingredients available in the plant for the planned order. Any number of the same batchescan be programmed to run consecutively. Batches can be reduced proportionally in size if required.
Once the operator is logged on to the device, the programmed instructions help him make up the batches. As the correct amount of each ingredient is added, the operator is prompted to the nextstage.
Depending on the configuration, ingredient lot numbers can either be entered manually or by bar code scanner. If the incorrect ingredient is selected or the wrong amount added, the screen goes redand prevents further progress until the situation is fixed.
Under certain circumstances, if too much of a particular ingredient is added, designated supervisors can authorise the batch size to be recalculated to accommodate the error.
If necessary the terminal can be configured to operate as a straightforward weighscale for the ingredients.
"The versatility of the proTrace makes it ideal for food producers of all sizes - from small independents through to multinationals, and system expansion can be carried out as and whenrequired," Practicon stated.