Product category:
Materials Testing
News Release from: Ishida Europe | Subject: DACS-W checkweighers
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 03 September 2002
Speedy checkweighers keep fruit lines
running
Ishida has devised a method of using checkweighers to provide faster, more accurate weighing of strawberries for The Greenery, one of Europe's leading fresh produce companies.
Ishida has devised a method of using checkweighers to provide faster, more accurate weighing of strawberries for The Greenery, one of Europe's leading fresh produce companies By enabling manual workers to concentrate on the actual handling of the fruit, manpower costs have been reduced by 40%
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 13 Nov 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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The Greenery (turnover Eur 1.4 billion) forms part of the giant Dutch co-operative VTN.
Its Operations Division serves 4500 growers of fruit and vegetables, and its Soft Fruit Unit packs strawberries for 300 growers.
Its previous system of strawberry packing involved only a limited amount of automated handling, as strawberries are particularly susceptible to mechanical damage.
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The hand-picked strawberries were placed directly into punnets, which were already packed in crates.
These were weighed roughly on-site, before being moved to cold rooms and chilled, necessary because at lower temperatures the fruit is less liable to damage during further transport and handling.
The Greenery felt that more accurate weighing was necessary, in order to provide a consistent pack weight to retailers and consumers, and to reduce giveaway of this valuable fruit.
Yet this could not be at the expense of the Greenery's aim of delivering the strawberries to retail outlets within 24-48 hours of picking.
The packing line provided by Ishida Europe, based at Best, in Holland, uses two checkweighers.
The strawberries arrive at the new packing line in trays, each containing six punnets (target weights 250g or 500g).
These punnets have been provided by The Greenery to the grower, so that most of the strawberries only need to be handled once.
The trays are placed on a conveyor, which passes them to the first of two Ishida checkweighers.
This checkweigher allows correct-weight and overweight trays to proceed.
Any underweight trays are moved by a special arm, running at the same speed as the conveyor to avoid stopping or shocking the delicate fruit.
The arm gently re-orientates the trays at an angle to the direction of travel, so that workers can recognise them.
At a workstation just after the first checkweigher, workers add fruit to the underweight punnets.
All punnets now proceed to a second Ishida checkweigher.
This is followed by a line-separating device which sends correct-weight packs on to be closed, but diverts overweight packs back to the workstation mentioned above, where they are used to top up underweight trays.
Any punnets, which are underweight by the time they reach the second checkweigher, are diverted all the way round to the first checkweigher, where they are identified, re-oriented and topped up.
Once closed and labelled, punnets pass through a metal detector before being packed into cases, ready for distribution.
A particular advantage of the Ishida packing line is its cost-effectiveness.
The alternative solution considered by The Greenery would have used static scales to sample tray weights, and would have required a team of 12.
It takes seven people to operate the new line, a saving of over 40% on potential labour costs.
Another advantage of this arrangement is the speed with which underweight and overweight can be corrected.
Of the punnets reaching the second checkweigher at any time, over 80% will be within acceptable weight limits.
As Eric van Roosmalen, Product Unit Manager at The Greenery says: "The Ishida installation is capable of delivering up to three pallet-loads per hour, whereas the original specification was two per hour".
The Ishida checkweighers are DACS-W waterproof models, offering high accuracy at speeds of up to 270 wpm, thanks to fast-reacting Ishida loadcells and low-vibration motors.
They are exceptionally easy to clean, and conform to stringent Nederlands Meetinstituut (NMI) standards.
The DACS-W can be programmed with instant set-ups for up to 100 different products, and so could be reset to take account of, for example, different growers, or different species or classes of fruit.
They are capable of providing all kinds of numerical and graphical information about the process, including analyses of the weight profiles of strawberry punnets from different growers.
The system is also capable of handling other soft fruit, such as plums and lychees.
To ensure a high standard of hygiene, the 'clean area' had to be kept separate from the area where fork-lift trucks were unloading produce trays and loading packed cases onto pallets.
The Greenery particularly wanted to keep all wood, including pallets, out of the clean area, and this led Ishida to design a special layout, making use of large U-turn conveyors.
Eric van Roosmalen describes the system, which has now been in operation for almost a year, as "fantastic" and "very fast", although he believes it is capable of even greater speeds.
"We add value for our growers by providing an attractively packed and lidded product.
We have actually gained customers, because we can guarantee that every punnet is of the correct weight and has been metal-checked".
"And because of the hygiene and safety aspects, we have no trouble in meeting the tough BRC codes which many of our big British supermarket customers insist on". Request a free brochure from Ishida Europe ...
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