J. Skinner Baking Co. of Omaha, Neb.,is one of the largest family-owned bakeries in the U.S. The company produces more than 300 million pastries a year, including the popular Danish strip cakes, known as Danish in the U.S. The company’s bakeryproducts are distributed at retail and foodservice outlets as well as through co-packing services throughout North America.J. Skinner的专业之一是层压面团，用于制作丹麦蛋糕。层压是指通过重复轧制和折叠而不是捏合来创造完美面团的艺术。
“Although most of our products are made by hand, we are naturally aware of the enormous importance of new automation technologies in the baked goods sector,” says David Skinner, Managing Director at J. Skinner Baking. “These play a major role in the continuous improvement of our high product quality. An important step has therefore been investment in automation technology for our packaging process.”
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Watch a video of the Schubert packaging line at J. Skinner Baking. |
To automate and thus simplify the packaging of its handmade Danish, J. Skinner worked with packaging equipment supplierGerhard Schubert GmbH, which developed a customized solution that could be integrated into the available space without restricting the existing production processes, while ensuring time- and cost-efficient handling of unplanned machine downtimes by adding a bypass function.
舒伯特的一体化,模块化包装解决方案consists of four integrated packaging machines, equipped with a number of robots. The packaging process begins when baking sheets, each of which hold four coffee cakes, are conveyed directly from the oven to the packaging line. The baking sheets are taken into the Schubert system by an F2 two-axis, articulated-arm robot and placed on a stepping chain, which transports the trays to the transfer area. There, the Danish are lifted out of the sheets from below by a NC (numerical control) unit and then placed onto the outfeed conveyor by another F2 robot. A third F2 robot transports the emptied sheets to an existing sheet-metal washing unit.
After removal from the baking sheets, the cakes are decorated and fed to the Schubert picker line via a spiral cooler. There, a spreading unit separates the cakes for individual quality control before F4 four-axis, pick-and-place robots place the Danish individually into clamshells. “This step is not about perfect positioning. In fact, it gives the system a high degree of flexibility and adaptability for future product changes,” explains Julian Conway, Sales Account Manager at Schubert North America.
The clamshells containing the Danish are packed in two identical Schubert case packers ready for dispatching.然后，含有丹麦语的蛤壳将被现有设备密封，标记和检查，然后被两个Schubert Case Packers包装成用于准备调度的各种格式的情况。
A unique add-on of the packaging system is an integrated bypass function that removes the Danish from the baking sheets in the event of an unforeseen machine stop. “We hadn’t even thought of such a bypass function when we first presented our ideas and wishes to Schubert,” says Skinner. “But once Schubert made us aware of the benefits of an integrated bypass system, we immediately recognized the added value.”
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Read this story to learn how German food producer Kuhne is improving OEE with robotics. |
To avoid a traffic jam of sheets in the future, the system allows the sheets to continue to be conveyed smoothly through the system at a higher level in the machine in the event of a fault.
自安装新的包装系统以来，J. Skinner正在为160张蛋糕/分钟实现线路速度，拾取线的效率为97％，两种情况下的效率为98％。
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