Minor Ingredient Weighing / Batching Case Study - Bakery

Prater-Sterling supplied a Minor Material Weighing System & Batching Controls to a bakery that produces fresh baked goods such as Buns, Bagels, French Bread and Italian Bread Products. The system supplied by Prater-Sterling is responsible for the individual weighments for the minor ingredients for their bread dough.

The customer had a very good concept of the system and the overall payback on the system. The primary requirements related to a full days worth of production storage of the raw ingredients, ten ingredients to be stored and weighed and the most and the maximum accuracy that they could achieve by the system. The customer already understood what the system would achieve in relation to the end products that they produce. Primarily relating to individual ingredient that weightments would be accurate, production time cost, and elimination of missing ingredients and double dosing of the ingredients. The customer quickly discovered that this new system lead to a consistent batch everytime.

The customer also had space restrictions, height and floor space were determined. Supply bins were sized based upon the feasibility studies performed on the customer products. Four 70-cubic foot circular bins stored the most commonly used ingredients. Six rectangular bins store ingredients that are used in smaller quantity. A combination of feeder types and sizes were used base upon the material weighment size and product flowability.

The systems overall dimensions cover approximately a 13’ by 18’ wide area under a 16’ tall ceiling that allows the operators to climb a stairwell to the mezzanine to fill the bins. Removable lids with dust collection pickups and bar grating inside of the bins were supplied on the supply bins. The Systems Controls (PC & PLC Based) allow the operator to select a formula and the number of batches to be produced for that formula. A scheduling screen allows a full day of production to be produced without the need to interact with the controls during production. The system provides tolerance control and material in suspension capability that insures each weighment is with-in the customer’s programmable acceptable tolerance. Modification to the formulas, ingredient parameters, system parameters are all available to the customers via security levels.