Checkweighers in bakery applications can differ from checkweighers in other food industries including dairy checkweighers and meat processing checkweighers. For instance, while most checkweighers are at the end of a line checking packages against fill specifications, bakery checkweighers might be nearer to the beginning of a line checking that dough is being sliced to correct proportions before baking. Since value is added all the way through the process, and the value added can be quite expensive (baking takes considerable energy) it's vital to get the weights right from the beginning of the baking process.
Speaking of dough, dough can drop into crevices and can be very difficult to clean even with a strong hosedown, so bakery checkweighers are often designed with this type of contamination in mind. Of course as we all know, any type of specialty design features such as this drives machinery cost, meaning that these machines need to work even harder to deliver great ROI.
Bakeries also handle a wide range of products of various consistencies. Whereas in a dairy, a checkweigher might be monitoring a line filling yogurt containers, or in a meat processing facility, package upon package of hot dogs, in a bakery there might be the core product such as a cupcake and an additional product which is the frosting. The rate of dispensing of frosting can change considerably with the temperature of the environment leading to wide swings in the weight of the final product being packaged and delivered.
Since checkweighers are so important in baking and there can be considerable financial impact of getting the weights wrong from the beginning to the end of a production line, it can be important to get the most out of the data that can be extracted from a set of checkweighers. In order to maximize bakery checkweigher ROI, as much data must be utilized as possible to ensure that you’re continuously improving your food operation.
Fortunately, Worximity now provides API connectivity to the most commonly used bakery checkweighers!
This provides bakers with two real advantages:
The first advantage is that you don’t have the time and expense of integrating Worximity Tileboards into your food manufacturing environment. This means that your Time-to-Value is significantly reduced as you can get right to using data to improve your operations.
The second, and more important advantage is that by using the API connectivity of the bakery checkweighers across your facilities, you get a richer, more meaningful data set. This can be critical in making sure that you reducing the overproduction waste (wastage) that comes with over-filling bakery packages and also making sure that you aren’t under-filling packages and putting your brand or even business at risk of the repercussions of incorrect product labeling.
Worximity now has API connectivity to the most commonly used bakery checkweighers including Mettler Toledo, Ishida, Yamato, as well as related instrumentation by Endress + Hauser.
To learn more about Worximity and maximizing product yield, visit here.
To learn how Worximity Smart Factory Analytics solutions can help you to maximize ROI in your bakery, review our case study below!