Baking & Snack - May 2007 - 88

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CHRISTY

SALT DISPENSER

Pictured is the Christy Salt
Dispensing Machine , unmatched
in its ability to give you precise,
automatic control of sodium content in your products. Two design

features give you ultimate control
hour after hour, shift

after shift.

DIGITAL TACHOMETER

The digital read-out , integrated
with the infinite speed control of
the dispensing shaft in the Christy
Machine Salter, gives you abso-

lute control down to a fraction of
an RPM . . . and consequently
exact salt control. Decide which

numerical read-out gives you the
sodium content you want, set it
and forget it.
SELF CLEANING
DISPENSING SHAFT

The unique , precision knurled

dispensing shaft picks up controlled quantities of salt from the
hopper and delivers to the product

on the conveyor.The reservoir of
salt self-cleans the dispensing
shaft. The hopper is enclosed to

seal out fat, grease or moisture.
FULL SIZE RANGE
Christy Salting Machines are

made with easy-to-clean, easy-tomaintain stainless steel and come
in sizes up to 60 inches wide.

Write or call for brochure or to
arrange free bench testing of your

products.

CMC

CHRISTY MACHINE CO.
P.O. Box 32 Fremont , Ohio
43420
419/332-6451

For more information, see Page 153

94 / BAKING & SNACK / May 2007

I N N O VAT I O N S
It's complex, which explains why
there are so many people, but automation can help reduce the complexities, reduce some of that headcount and increase productivity. In
the bake shop, I think automation
can assist the baker to be more flexible. Like everyone here, we're not
baking buns for eight hours straight
anymore. We're baking a variety for
15 minutes, shutting down, setting
up for another variety and starting
to bake that. If that changeover gap
gets smaller, we haven't necessarily reduced people on the line, but
we've certainly applied automation
to improve manufacturing capacity.
From the dock forward is where the
productivity opportunities are. Order fulfillment, tracking and RFID
applications all may be technologies
that help drive efficiency in the next
five to 10 years.
Jim Kline: I believe that part of
the problem in addressing shipping automation is that it's very
costly at this point for equipment
to perform those functions. I think
one of the things that is going to
change is a different cost picture as
more firms move into the automation of these tasks.
Rich Berger: It's not doing the same
thing better; it's doing it completely different and not just hiring a
faster, stronger person out on the
floor to do it quicker. That's not the
answer. I look at those distribution
docks, and I think, "How does this
stuff really get to the customer in
an accurate way?"
Baking & Snack: Do you seek
potential answers from other
industries? Do you look outside
the baking industry, outside the
food industry?
Robert Benton: New innovations
and answers will come from the information industry.

Dermot O'Connor: In product accountability, tracing product from
the end of the production line to the
customer, there are other industries
such as the dairy industry that have
similar distribution systems but do
a much better job than we do. They
are a much bigger user of bar code
technology, for example.
In many cases, the solutions are
out there. It becomes a question of
understanding if the vendors that
already know our business want
to participate, or do we have to go
to the suppliers that are already
experts in the filed and introduce
them to the baking business and
have to go through the associated
learning curve.
Rowdy Brixey: I think you've got to
go looking where there are better
margins to get some of the innovation that could change the landscape
in the baking industry. We're not going to be first out there testing new
concepts, because we can't afford
costly mistakes.
Dermot O'Connor: I think it's
also a question of our vendors listening to us and developing strategies to
tackle the issues that hold the greatest
opportunities for us. But they may
not be prepared to go in a radically
different direction to seek solutions
because they don't know if they're
going to recoup their R&D costs.
However, our vendors need to know
that when we identify a significant
trend such as increasing distribution
costs, we're obviously going to have
an incentive to seek new solutions in
this area of our business and invest
money in the process.
Jim Kline: I agree with Dermot and
Rowdy. There are a few large companies that are missing from this table,
but for the most part, the baking industry is a relatively small market.
The number of firms that are willing
to invest large capital is very small.

Baking & Snack - May 2007

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