Athletes need fuel – can your production keep up?
Pasta is sure to be in demand as the Tour de France continues and other national sporting events take place this year, so Yamato is asking manufacturers to make sure that their production lines are ready to capitalise on the increased demand for this essential food product.
Riders in the prestigious Tour de France, easily the World’s largest cycling event, exert a ridiculous amount of energy, burning up to 4,500 calories in each stage of the race alone. This massive energy burn is of course on top of the standard 1,500 to 2,500 calories that every human being needs to function on a daily basis.
Unsurprisingly, this means that entrants in the race are fully committed to a carbo-loading regimen to ensure a steady supply of energy throughout any given day of hard cycling. The old favourite, Pasta, is joined by cereal, oatmeal and rice to ensure the body is fed up to 4 hours before each day’s cycling begins.
However, cyclists aren’t the only ones that need to ensure they’re operating efficiently, pasta producers need to ensure their product is well handled, ensuring minimum damage and maximum speeds when weighed and packaged.
Photo Credit: coolmonfrere via Compfight cc
Challenges of Pasta handling
As it is a free flowing product, it can often flow too fast for optimum production and weighing accuracy can be compromised. The product is also relatively fragile and particularly susceptible to damage.
Yamato recently installed the ADW-514AT Pasta multihead weigher for a pasta manufacturer that included 10° dimple top cone and pasta spec linear feed pans, which were specially designed to control the flow of the pasta to achieve optimum product control. The vibratory amplitude of the linear feeder pans and top cone were supplied lower than normal, to help reduce cases of overspill from the linear feed pans – which further improved product flow and weighing accuracy.
“All linear feed pans, feed and weigh buckets, as well as discharge gates, were installed with extra leak-proofing due to the small size of the product. This also helped with noise absorption and provided extra protection for the pasta” said Lee Smith, Yamato’s After Sales Commercial Manager and cycling enthusiast.
Additionally, wraparound twin collating chutes with urethane inserts were also recommended; the chutes enabled high speed weighing while reduced damage to the somewhat fragile source of carbohydrates. A silo infeed funnel and infeed ring with urethane fingers was installed to ensure that the pasta was weighed consistently without spillage and with improved accuracy.
This particular installation witnessed increased throughput to 100wpm for 500g packs, as well as significant increases in the speed, efficiency and accuracy of the production line.
Yamato’s weighing machines are robust and constructed specifically for the products they will be weighing. However, to ensure optimum performance at all times, Yamato recommends a regular programme of servicing. Yamato’s After Sales team is on hand to respond to problems or queries regarding the operation of all their machines and endeavours to respond to all breakdowns within 24 hours, on working days. Yamato understands the importance of responding to customers’ breakdown and maintenance calls in order to keep downtime to a minimum.
Yamato provides its customers with a comprehensive spare parts support service with significant stock holding from their head office in Leeds. If parts are not readily available from the Leeds office the company will call upon its Global Network system to fulfil orders.
“While your production line might not manage to capitalise on the current demand for pasta (the Tour de France ends on the 27th of July), you may well want to ensure you’re ready for the next event with Yamato weighing equipment installed”, added Smith.
Andrea Spencer,
Commercial and Marketing Manager,
Yamato Scale (UK) Dataweigh.
@YamatoScaleUK
Tel. 0113 322 1546
Email: andrea.spencer@yamatoscale.co.uk
About Yamato Scale Dataweigh (UK) Limited
Yamato is one of the leading global manufacturers of commercial weighing equipment and with over 90 years' manufacturing experience, we know what our customers need and expect.
Originally founded in 1922 as The Weighing Machine Division of Kawanishi Kikai K.K and later rebranded as Yamato Scale Ltd, Yamato is proud of its Japanese heritage; our passion to provide quality multihead weighers and deliver superior customer support is what drives us.
As a result Yamato’s multihead weighers and checkweighers have gained an unrivalled reputation worldwide, and our weighing machines are trusted by manufacturers in a range of industries across the globe; from granulated products and confectionery to meat and IQF frozen produce.
Yamato’s multihead weighers and checkweighers are energy efficient, accurate, hygienic, and easy to operate. The Dataweigh Omega multihead weigher, for instance, boasts a 60% reduction in power consumption without compromising on speed or effectiveness.
For further information please contact:
Andrea Spencer,
Commercial and Marketing Manager,
Yamato Scale (UK) Dataweigh.
@YamatoScaleUK
Tel. 0113 322 1546
Email: andrea.spencer@yamatoscale.co.uk
www.yamatoscale.co.uk
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