Packing breakfast cereals

Kentaur manufactures breakfast cereals, both for its own brand and for major retailers such as Migros and Coop, Switzerland’s first- and second-largest retailers. To plan and install a complete new packing system for a wide variety of popped wheat cereals and corn flakes, Kentaur chose Ishida’s representative in Switzerland, Itech of Rotkreuz.

In order to meet customer expectations in breakfast cereal production, Kentaur’s packing system needed to work at high speeds, be able to handle mixes as well as single-ingredient products, accommodate both long and short production runs and to offer rapid product changeovers.

The flexibility of the new system begins with the buffer silos mounted at the top of the three-storey installation. Two 1200 L silos are available for a single ingredient or for the major components of a mix, while two smaller (300 L) tanks can contain minor components or simply augment the large silos.

Each silo empties into a vibrating feeder, situated on the next floor down, at the top of a 16-head Ishida weigher. This model is partitioned to handle a four-part mixture and, so, can readily adapt to weigh either a single ingredient or a mix of two, three or four ingredients.

Weighments are discharged into a vertical bagmaker on the next floor down. The PE or PP bags (target weights range from 150 to 750 g) are conveyed to a metal detector, then checkweighed, before being picked-and-placed into cardboard boxes.

For the consumer, quality means consistency

Mixing the ingredients on the weigher harnesses the accuracy of Ishida multihead weighing to ensure that each pack of breakfast cereal contains exactly the same mixture every time. Pre-mixing simply cannot provide this level of quality.

The need for speed

Sheer speed of packing is an important factor in delivering packed product on time, as well as being key to the efficient running of the plant.

With Ishida’s R-Series multihead weighers, calculation and verification of weight combinations has become faster than ever before, while accuracy has also improved.

These attributes, combined with the reliability of Ishida weighers (95% availability was specified), means a consistent delivery of packs at speeds which are impressive, given the relatively slow flow-rates of these types of cereal. A single product can attain 60 packs per minute, roughly three times the speed achieved with the linear weigher used previously, while mixtures can be produced at up to 45 packs per minute (375 g packs).

Varying production run length

Plant Manager Andreas Hebeisen comments on the varied demands the new line had to meet: “We must react quickly and flexibly to client needs which means being able to process large orders, but also to manage very short production runs.” Here, the lift-off, drop-on design of the contact parts of the Ishida multihead weigher is a major help in keeping downtime to a minimum.

“The precision of the Ishida weigher translates directly into cost reduction,” says Andreas Habeisen. He cites the giveaway on a 375 g pack of corn flakes experienced with the older linear weigher as 3.2 g, by comparison with the current Ishida-achieved level of 0.3 g.

The right solution

Does the new system meet the responsiveness requirements? After a year of operation, Andreas Hebeisen is very clear on this point: “The new line has broadened Kentaur’s capabilities and improved our abilities to meet our clients’ expectations. The packing process is now significantly faster and the mixing function gives us great flexibility”.

Hebeisen also appreciated the efficiency of the installation process: “The whole project is a perfect example for on-time delivery, service orientation and reliability. The line worked flawlessly from the start.”

Ishida equipment is available in Australia and New Zealand from Heat and Control.