Baking & Snack - June 2023 - 96

featured technical expert Q&A
Ann Hamil
Benchmark
Ann Hamil has worked in automation for more than 40 years, but
said she ended up in the baking industry purely by chance.
" When I got out of college, I took a job with a large corporation
and was very quickly dissatisfied with the pace of the projects
I worked on, " she explained. " It felt as though I'd never see
anything real come from my work for years. "
As she was looking for a new position, a friend recommended
Ms. Hamil to a startup company doing automation in the food
packaging industry.
" This was in the very early days of applying servo technology
to machine controls, " Ms. Hamil said. " I have been working in
this area ever since. "
Ms. Hamil spent more
than 20 years at Automation
Intelligence, which provided servo-based machine controls and
integration services to OEMs and end users. She then joined
Benchmark, where she's led the company's controls group, served
as director of engineering and today works as vice president of
technology.
Ms. Hamil, who holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering
from the Georgia Institute of Technology, says she loves
the variety of her role, as well as the constant evolution of maWhat
are the biggest benefits of automating
packaging for bakers?
One obvious benefit is labor reduction and the resulting cost savings.
The tasks that are best accomplished by automation are highly
repetitive, which is exactly what people are not good at doing for
extended periods of time.
Another benefit is frequently increased production rates in a
smaller footprint because machines are often able to handle products
more quickly.
What are the latest technologies that allow
bakers to automate this process?
The use of linear servos, and servos in general can greatly simplify
mechanical designs. Electronic gearing and camming not only replace
mechanical linkages, but provide the flexibility needed to accommodate
a variety of product sizes and functions without the
need for change parts.
Independent cart technology has opened up many opportunities
to provide flexibility to machines that might have been impossible
in the past or would have required extensive mechanical change
parts to accomplish.
Robotics, particularly with flexible end effectors and coordinated
with vision systems, can help automate the packaging of
products that are fragile. Vision systems and sensors are becom96
Baking & Snack June 2023 / www.bakingbusiness.com
chine capability and the products
used to control them.
" Benchmark makes many different
machines and customizes
them for specific applications, so
every day brings new challenges, " she
said. " As part of ProMach, we have the atmosphere
and agility of a small company with
the resources of a large company. "
One of the biggest challenges Ms. Hamil sees facing her field
today is the growing number of smaller companies turning to automation
amid a tight labor market.
" Making machines that accommodate the wide variety of
products and frequent changeovers that these customers need
can be very difficult, " she said.
Safety and sanitation requirements are increasing as well, often
conflicting with one another and with the ease of operating and
maintaining equipment, she added.
" On some projects, our engineers spend almost as much time
designing effective ways to guard and clean the machinery as on
the actual operating parts, " Ms. Hamil said.
ing more and more capable of complex product inspection, both to
ensure quality, and to eliminate product that might cause machine
downtime before it gets into a machine.
What are some challenges bakers may face when
automating their packaging?
While the rapid changes in technology allow much higher degrees
of automation, the flip side is that the control platforms become
obsolete much more quickly than mechanical machines. In addition,
even with extensive diagnostic and troubleshooting capability
built into the machines, the skill level of the maintenance staff
needs to keep pace with the complexity of the equipment.
How does the type of bakery affect which packaging
system or material is best?
We have to evaluate the product for every system before we can provide
a quote. Most of the equipment we build is handling raw products:
feeding, stacking, grouping, etc., to present it to a machine that
will actually put it into a package. Product dimensions and tolerances,
shape and consistency are key factors when considering what
kind of machine can be used to handle the product. For example, a
solution that is ideal for a snack cracker may reduce a rice cracker to
nothing but crumbs. A machine that feeds cakes or cookies may not
be able to handle muffins because of their top-heavy nature. Sticky,
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