Meat+Poultry - December 2020 - 99

them move on to the automated washing and
sanitizing line, also technology from Marel. As
the modules go through wash down and sanitization, the trucks that delivered them simultaneously go through an indoor truck wash.
After a Stork picker defeathers the birds and
puts them through a wash, another machine
removes the paws and switches the birds to a
new shackle automatically.
" About 80% of our equipment in this plant is
Marel and Stork from front to back, " said Walt
Shafer, Lincoln Premium's chief operating officer.
" They are a major partner with us on this,
we're using most of their technology. "
" Only about 1% fall during the switch, " said
Jessica Kolterman, director of corporate and
external affairs for Lincoln Premium.
Once on the new shackle, birds move through
a set of Stork evisceration machines. These
machines eviscerate the birds and send the
removed viscera through the inspection line with
the bird it came from behind it. If USDA inspectors see a problem with the viscera, the carcass
it came from is easy to identify. Carcasses then
go through an antimicrobial spray cabinet and
jump to another set of shackles that take them
through the air chill.
After air chilling, carcasses pass through a set
of Stork cameras that capture images of the front
and back of each carcass, checking for flaws as
the shackle records the weight and sends all data
to Marel's Innova system.
" It runs all the plant floor functions, " Shafer said.

TRACKING THE BIRDS

We've got
computers
that weigh
it, allocate
it, pack it,
ship it, create
labels, and
all that's
Innova. "
Walt Shafer

Chicken tenders are
separated, weighed
and sorted before
being packaged for
retail sale at Costco.

The software tracks birds from live, to the first
time they're hung on a shackle and into and
through second processing. Bird weights are
recorded at multiple points throughout the journey, from stunning to packaging in addition to
many other functions.
" We'll know what it weighs, where there are
opportunities; we've got cameras that tie into it, "
Shafer said. " We've got computers that weigh it,
allocate it, pack it, ship it, create labels, and all
that's Innova. We use them as a total solution on
our shop floor platform. "
While the platform works well for Lincoln
Premium, the company faced a unique challenge.
Typical greenfield plant construction projects
have some sort of model to look to for guidance
on design, process, equipment, etc. Whether it
is an existing facility in a different location or
a previous facility, certain aspects already exist
to at least guide those involved in making decisions, but Costco and Lincoln Premium had
nothing prior to the new plant, including operations software.
" We didn't have a system that was working
somewhere else that just got put in, " Shafer said.
" We had to build everything from start to finish. "
Shafer believes in the software package, but
as a seasoned veteran of the poultry processing
industry, he understands the need of skilled people to make it work efficiently.
" You have to put all your inputs into it in order
to make it work, you've got to tell it what you
want it to do. You've got to put all that information into it, " Shafer said. " It takes weeks and
weeks and days and days and people's time to
put every detail into these operating platforms to
make them give you what you want in the end. "
The decision to partner with Marel, and ultimately use the Innova software, was not made
in haste, and Costco played a role in figuring out
how to proceed.
" Walt [Shafer] went with Costco on several
European tours to find everything they wanted, "
Kolterman said.
The process to set up the system is long
and arduous, and specialists must assist. Shafer
hired both a quality assurance director and a
plant manager a year in advance. The two positions spent a bulk of the time before the plant
started actual production with Marel technicians
explaining what they wanted from the software,
such as birds per man hour, yields, efficiencies,
etc., as well as populating the new operating

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Meat+Poultry - December 2020

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