Baking & Snack - June 2009 - 77

INGREDIENT HANDLING

dered sugar. Another challenge the
supplier faced was cooling the freshly
ground powdered sugar without using cryogenic gas. Tasty did not want
to use cryogenic gas because it didn't
have these systems onsite, according
to Mr. Fischer. Therefore, Shick designed a system to cool the powdered
sugar using chilled water and fluidized hoppers above the icing mixers.
Mr. Fischer said that this was a
unique project in the fact that the
ingredient handling equipment was
installed prior to other systems such
as the mixers and the ovens. "This
was the first project I have been
involved with where they installed
all the material handling equipment
ahead of time," he pointed out. "It
was advantageous to us because
typically a company orders a mixer
and puts it in place, and we only
have so much room above that we
have to figure out how we are going
to get that product into the mixer. It
also made it easier for us to install
our systems not having other equipment in there."
While Shick has virtually completed its installations at the plant, it will
be working with the bakery to ensure
smooth startups as the new lines go
into operation later this year and early
next year, according to Mr. Fischer.

BAKING & SNACK / June 2009

Assistance with Hand Scaling
Plenty of plants continue to employ operators who manually
write down hand-adds. "These reports must be collected and
compiled by office personnel if accurate records are to be kept,"
said Ken Schwenger, sales manager, food, AZO, Inc., Memphis, TN.
To assist plants in keeping more accurate records of handscaled ingredients, AZO offers the ManDos system that instantly
reports inventory levels of these ingredients. To ensure accuracy,
this system can be set up with parameters such that the operator will only be allowed to move to the next ingredient, if the
prior weightment has been conformed to the set minimum or
maximum deviation.
ManDos also helps with
repeatability by using a recipedriven menu. "The operator
calls up a particular recipe, and
via a touch screen, competed
tasks are checked off," Mr.
Schwenger said.
To assist with lot tracking,
the system generates bar-code
labels, and a barcode reader
at the mixer ensures that the
scaled ingredients go to the
ᮡ This manual system for weighing minor
correct destination. ManDos
and micro ingredients offers operators
accuracy, repeatability, lot tracking and
also significantly decreases
reduces lost batches.
lost batches.
AZO

ᮢ Condensation concerns are not an issue with
indoor flexible fabric silos, which make them
ideal for whole-wheat flours that tend to mold
more quickly than white flours.
CONTEMER SILO SYSTEMS

ENERGY EFFICIENCY. One of the
qualities Shick brings to projects
such as those above is out-of-thebox thinking, Mr. Fischer said. "Customers want to produce more batches and have flexibility for different
products," he explained. "They have
limited space available and want to
minimize manpower. Our customers have short implementation windows and want to automate as many
ingredients as possible. As a result,
we have brought different system designs to the industry to support our
customers' focuses. This means a departure from a more straightforward
approach to a complex design to
accomplish all the process needs."
In addition, the ingredient
handling company has expanded its
process controls to accommodate
bakeries, according to Mr. Fischer.
"Recipe management, lot tracking
and batch scheduling are all areas

Baking & Snack - June 2009

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