Baking & Snack - April 2023 - 74

INGREDIENT HANDLING
is needed today and tomorrow. "
Bakers also need to consider challenges that have nothing
to do with the production efficiencies, and these need
to be evaluated in light of the bakery's main goals, in this
case, labor reduction and efficiency.
" Height and layout limitation and restricted budget are
some of them, " said David Rodrigues, sales engineer for
USA West Coast and Latin America, Zeppelin Systems
USA. " Zeppelin believes that understanding the real necessity
of the client is the right way to approach these issues
by aiming automation efforts at the ingredients with larger
consumption and labor dependence. This way the system
can be designed to fit the customers' current situation and
still be suitable for future expansions. "
Bakeries managing many different products and the
to these automated systems and
ensure that they're optimizing
their capabilities while also reducing
headcount.
Approaches from all angles
When automating ingredient handling,
baking companies often
first look at bulk ingredients and
then minors. Bulk ingredient handling
can eliminate virtually all labor:
Ingredients come in on truck
or rail, are pumped into silos or
bins and then transferred into the
mixer all without a human hand
involved. Minor handling systems,
on the other hand, can certainly
remove much of the skill required
Most bakeries start
by automating bulk
ingredient handling
first followed by
minor ingredient
handling, both of
which offer labor
savings and production
efficiencies.
Gemini Bakery Equipment/
KB Systems
for scaling and adding them to the dough. However, it can
only minimize labor, not eliminate it entirely.
" The smaller ingredients will still have an element of labor
because of the packaging sizes, " Mr. Stricker explained.
" A person still has to stage the supersacks or the 50-lb bag
has to be emptied into a vessel that feeds the automated
systems. "
When adding this automation, planning is critical. These
systems are expensive and often must be invested in and installed
in increments. Without looking ahead, baking companies
can miss opportunities to streamline efficiencies.
" If a customer is considering putting together an automation
plan or looking to expand, it's important to think
about it in terms of the end goal and where they are today
and put together a plan that addresses key areas along the
way, so they can build the plan out incrementally, " Mr.
Miller said. " Often, we have conversations with customers
who don't have any automation, and it's a binary mindset.
We can help you figure out the plan and build out the incremental
steps that make good financial sense based on what
74 Baking & Snack April 2023 / www.bakingbusiness.com
changeovers they require will also need to be attentive to
ingredient usage when planning their ingredient handling
system. Changeovers are typically seamless with the help
of software systems, but they go more smoothly when
bakers take the time to be intentional about which ingredients
should be automated and which should be handled
manually.
" When dealing with a high number of ingredients and
changeovers, the best thing you can do is carefully plan out
what you're going to automate, and those are the ingredients
that are most frequently used in a lot of different recipes, "
Mr. Stricker said. " A careful analysis of your next tier
of ingredient usage and how those can be automated as well
is also really important. "
Digitizing the mental load
Automation brings the benefits of speed and efficiency to
any bakery operation. By removing the human element,
bakeries can run not only faster to meet throughput demands
but also more precisely even at high speeds. This is
even true when it comes to changeovers between products,
which hinder production efficiency.
" Changeovers should not be an issue when considering
ingredient handling, " said Pieter Van Hoecke, business development
manager, North America, Spiromatic. " Flexible
technologies like vacuum conveying allow the drawing of
bulk ingredients from different sources, while automated
micro ingredient platforms can automatically prescale
batches of micro ingredients that can then automatically
be conveyed to the final mixers. These can automatically
switch from one recipe to the next. "
The key to all of this is digital tools that take on the mental
load previously placed on operators to manage changeovers
of ingredients between production runs. Production
management software executes the production schedule
automatically, making the changes between ingredients
and scaling.
" Spiromatic's SPEC suite allows complete management
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