Promtek’s weighing system upgrades yield benefits for baked goods maker
Promtek has helped a market-leading baked goods and mixes specialist up its game by improving productivity and bringing its process control systems and production lines fully up to date.
The UK manufacturer of baked goods and mixes based in the Midlands has over 100 years of expertise in flagship baked products and ingredients is one of the world’s largest suppliers of bakery solutions.
Promtek has been the company’s main process control supplier since 1993 and, in the last two decades, has completed many partner projects. This latest project presented Promtek with the challenge of improving all aspects of its weighing process. The real challenge lay in implementing the necessary upgrades with minimum downtime and disruption to production schedules.
Promtek’s StoraWeigh9000 platform met exceeded the customer’s requirements as a feature-rich process control system handles any bulk material handling process that runs on all major programmable logic controller (PLC) hardware and allows them to be mixed freely.
Additional improvements implemented by Promtek’s engineers to the production line included:
- Downscaling the hand addition from six to three bins – this resulted in reduced pipe works in the factory.
- Blow lines were upgraded and replaced by modern vacuum exhausters controlled by the latest ‘soft start’ motor starters. This greatly improves energy consumption and improves the motor’s lifespan by reducing wear and tear during start/stop cycles.
- A full rewire to separate different parts of the system into more defined control panels.
- The latest high-definition graphics package installed and improved remote access. This was a key pillar of the upgrade, ensuring that the system could be available for technical support and open the opportunity for technicians to work from home. That’s a real boon for companies looking to adopt a more flexible working environment.
By implementing lean improvements to the line, the company became more efficient, saved money, improved automation and was more effectively future-proofed. The new weighing vessels increased weighing accuracy and the new control panels deliver the raw materials in a vastly more efficient and consistent way. The reduction in bin numbers decreased manual handling and increased the overall factory floor space, a space saving measure with a real cost saving benefit. The reduced pipe work brings lower maintenance costs – another considerable saving – while modern vacuum exhausters help to conserve energy and protect the motors, increasing longevity and reliability.
The software contains highly repeatable and consistent user configurable multi-speed setpoints to define the transfer speed between raw material silos to auto weighers. This feature’s control system runs at variable speed to fine tune production and can take account of all the measurables during manufacturing. Historically, all control was wired through one control panel which was very inefficient and time-consuming – but the upgrade will decrease downtime in the rare case of a breakdown, and further improve efficiency.
Charles Williams, Promtek’s managing director, noted the gratitude of the long-standing customer.
“We believe wholeheartedly in creating and building on mutually collaborative relationships with our clients,” he explained. “We listen and work together to deliver solutions; we never impose. In this case we are absolutely delighted to have contributed to a significant uplift in productivity for another loyal customer, and will look forward to seeing them reap the benefits over the coming years.”
