Baking & Snack - May 2007 - 40

I N N O VAT I O N S
they can come to our test bakery and our maintenance
and technical people are here to train them," said Jon
Thompson, sales director, Western region, Rheon USA,
Irvine, CA. "We encourage our customers to make appointments and do that."
PARTNERING OPPORTUNITIES. Mr. Thompson said
nearly all first-time Rheon customers visit the company's
test facility prior to buying a piece of equipment. "One
of the things we almost unabashedly require is that our
customers come in and test the equipment prior to purchase," he added.
Rheon USA has operated its test facility for more than
20 years. "It is used for a wide variety of testing from a
small, mom-and-pop cookie company up to international baking companies with worldwide distribution," Mr.
Thompson said.
The test facility features all of Rheon's equipment from
its smallest coextrusion machine all the way up to a full
artisan bread line. And like most other vendor-operated
testing centers, Rheon offers a full complement of equipment in its testing facility including mixers, proofers
and ovens. "We work with other vendors to supply that
equipment to us, and we always try to bring in their latest equipment, so we are showing the best we can," Mr.
Thompson said.
The E.I. Groff Technical Center offers a variety of mixing options from its vendor partners, including a Shaffer
batch horizontal mixer, a Hobart vertical mixer, a Collette
high-shear mixer and several ExAct continuous mixers.
The Babb Tech Center showcases a proofer, several mixers, a table sheeter and impingement cooler, as well as a
complete test kitchen with drains, slopped epoxy floors,
conference rooms with wireless connections and video
conferencing, and much more. "If other testing equipment is necessary, we have had other vendor partners
ship their test units in to help with the testing process,"
Mr. Foran said. "The other vendors and our engineers
install and make ready this complementary equipment
before the customer arrives. We have also installed walkin refrigerator and freezers for receiving ingredients and
testing of frozen products once baked."
VERSATILITY AND FLEXIBILITY. Dunbar Systems, Inc.'s
bakery also is equipped with all the necessary mixing
and proofing equipment. The Lemont, IL-based North
American distributor of Auto-Bake Serpentine ovens
recently rolled out a new oven in its 4,000-sq-ft testing
center. The MK 118-7 Auto-Bake oven is capable of running both forward and in reverse, allowing it to meet any
baking profile of any product, according to Jim Diver,
vice-president of operations.
"The Auto-Bake Serpentine Baking System is virtually one machine that is fully integrated and compact using multilevel baking and cooling," Mr. Diver
44 / BAKING & SNACK / May 2007

ᮡ Bakers can test their products using this serpentine baking system to
determine performance.
DUNBAR SYSTEMS, INC.

explained. "The test line allows us to prove that your
existing product can bake faster and with more control
than a conventional baking system, or we can assist you
in the development of new products using our patented
Serpentine Baking System. We have worked with various customers' R&D personnel in the areas of cooling,
freezing and depanning capabilities. This provides an
avenue for bakers to trial their specific product in the
Serpentine system, obligation free."
Dunbar Systems opened the test bakery in 1998, and
this marks the first time it has updated the Auto-Bake
Serpentine System. The new Serpentine test oven incorporates Auto-Bake's latest convection heating and "free
pan" transport technologies. "Now, industrial baking
groups have even more flexibility when trying out the
Serpentine oven," said Michael Dunbar, executive vicepresident, Dunbar Systems. "They can gain an understanding of how both the convection and radiant heating
systems perform, either separately or in tandem. You can
bake absolutely anything in this oven - from pastries
and breads to cakes and cookies."
Other suppliers also demonstrate the flexibility of
their equipment in their testing centers. RBS features a
2-zone, 32-ft-long Spectrum oven and a 16-ft-long dryer
in its 10,000-sq-ft technical center. The 2-zone, 32-ft-long
oven uses both radiant and convection heat. Mr. Zvoncheck described the oven as "very versatile, very flexible."
In front of the oven can be a full sheeting system, a
low-pressure extruder, a rotary moulder or a wirecutting depositing line, depending on customer needs.
"By moving pieces of equipment in and out of the front
end of the line, we can basically customize the line to run
almost any baked product you can think of," he said.
The oven and sheeting line are both controlled using
remote operator interface terminal (OIT) stations. "The
line is fully automated and very user friendly," Mr. Zvoncheck said. "We can control temperature, convection

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