Product category:
Food and drink manufacturing: processing equipment
News Release from: Marco | Subject: Food traceability system
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 17 June 2005
Food traceability system pays dividends
A comprehensive recipe formulation, stock control and traceability system is bringing wide ranging benefits to the East Anglian based specialist food producer Hiltfields.
Hiltfields was set up in 1979 by the current Managing Director Bill Simm to import and process fresh ingredients such as garlic, chillies, gingers and herbs Always looking for new and exciting opportunities, the company has expanded year on year, with the emphasis now firmly focused on being a leading custom blending operation, producing a tantalising array of bespoke sauces, formed butters and fresh herbs for the rapidly expanding ready meals market
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 22 Dec 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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Setting and maintaining very high standards have formed a solid foundation at Hiltfields, on which hundreds of successful product launches have been achieved over the past 25 years.
The minimum requirement for any supplier to Bill Simm's business is to match these high standards and Marco has been able to aspire to this throughout the installation and commissioning stages of the project.
Traceability is at the heart of the system installed at Hiltfields and is based around Marco's inspirational TRAC-IT E4 software suite utilising industrial PC based DataMaster workstations located in four main areas of the plant.
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The stainless steel, user-friendly workstations, each with an RF barcode scanner and label printer, are linked through a local area network via the TRAC-IT server to nine PCs, which operate as TRAC-IT viewers.
The system monitors and records all stages of the process from Goods-In to Final Despatch.
Marco refers to TRAC-IT as the 'MiddleWare' missing link layer, specifically designed to provide the bridge between ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and MRP (Material Resource Planning) systems and the factory floor.
The concept is based around unique trace codes, which are assigned and affixed to products in the form of bar coded labels or tags.
The traceability chain starts as soon as a product arrives at goods-in where the first of the DataMaster stations is located, linked to a 300kg x 100g Ultra Low-Profile (ULP) drive-through stainless steel floor scale.
Firstly, incoming goods are weighed together with associated attribute checks to ascertain whether these have come from an approved supplier.
The 'use-by-date' is then verified and the stores location allocated.
Secondly to maintain the traceability continuum, the 'deboxed' products are weighed.
These are ingredients, which are taken out of their primary packaging and placed in hygienic factory containers, before being transferred into the production area.
Every time a product is moved to a different location, its label is read via one of the RF bar code readers and the central database updated.
If more than one ingredient is mixed together to form a sub batch, the resulting trace code for the mixture carries previous details of the trace codes for all the ingredients.
In the Mixing Room, a twin scale DataMaster controls recipe formulation for more than 100 products.
Having both a 60kg x 10g scale and a 6kg x1g scale built into the same framework provides excellent operational efficiency and flexibility together with ensuring the wide range of ingredients are weighed out with optimum precision.
In the dedicated Butter Room a third DataMaster terminal controls a 30kg x 5g bench scale and another 300kg ultra low-profile scale.
Depending on specific customer requirements, works orders are assembled and sent via the network to the appropriate workstation.
Here the large work-station screen prompts the operator to select the correct ingredients, scan the barcodes and weigh out the specified quantities in the prescribed sequence.
The system verifies critical parameters at the beginning and end of each addition before allowing the operator to continue with the process.
If the operator inadvertently selects the wrong product, the screen flags up the problem and the system do not allow the weighing to take place.
This control eliminates spoilt batches resulting from missing or incorrect ingredients, as well as significantly reducing other operator dependant errors.
As product is used, the system automatically downgrades the appropriate stock levels giving management a real time view of stock usage and availability.
In the Cooking Room the fourth DataMaster station is linked to a third ULP scale for weighing processed batches both before and after cooking.
This again maintains the traceability and provides important 'pre' and 'post' cooking yield data.
The system was installed towards the end of 2004 and has brought about some impressive changes very quickly.
By his own admission Bill Simm accepts that he is not the easiest customer to please and as he explains: "Initially we were sceptical about Marco's claims but soon realised that their approach to business is very similar to our own, focusing on dynamic innovation, attention to detail and always striving to improve".
"They have worked diligently with our staff to make sure the system now does exactly what we want".
"Our customers are becoming more discerning and coupled with the stringent traceability and food safety legislation, we needed a system that could improve our bottom line and give us data on demand".
" Hiltfield's success has come from being innovative, creative and pro-active, giving customers exactly what they want".
"Fortunately, from our history as ingredient manufacturers we still process many of our own main ingredients and this gives us greater control over our products".
"We work from either customer-supplied recipes or, more often than not, from those 'designed' in our own recipe development laboratory".
"The diversity of the products and packaging requires a high level of manufacturing dedication and with product life cycles becoming shorter and shorter we have to be very proactive and efficient".
"The Marco system not only provides the essential traceability data but also virtually eliminates wastage and spoilt batches, thereby ensuring product consistency and quality together with stock optimisation".
"If customers request an audit the essential data is available at the touch of a button".
"We now feel confident that we are in control of our process, not the other way round.".
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