Weighing system chips in to raise McCain's productivity
18 Feb 2011
Scunthorpe, UK – McCain Foods UK Ltd’ has recently improved the process performance of the existing intake potato conveyor belt weigher at its oven-ready chips manufacturing operation in Scarborough, north Yorkshire.
The company had previously identified that the existing belt weigher was not performing well and was unreliable: with weight measurement, in particular, not having functioned properly since installation.
To resolve these issues, McCain Foods replaced the existing weigher with a new FX belt weigher and I400 controller, from Precia-Molen, which could be operated in conjunction with the plants own process control system.
In order to achieve maximum performance the speed of the belt was established by measuring the belt speed at the conveyors tail end drum. This was slowed down to allow the weight of material on the belt to be increased to present a more accurate measurement of material passing over the belt scale.
Final adjustment and fine tuning of the Precia-Molen I 400 controller was then completed to record and log key information.
This information is managed and distributed using McCain’s on-site communication protocol to their process control room. The in-house automated control system allows the operator to set the desired weight they require for their process.
The system records the weight of material passing over the potato intake conveyor belt scale, passing the information to the automated controller.
The automatic controller then adjusts the controlled belt speed to maximise potato intake demand and prevent over or under feeding to the process peelers, ensuring the plant is always operating at an optimum levels of efficiency, saving on energy costs whilst providing increased production performance.
“We now have the confidence to operate the potato intake conveyor weigh scale in conjunction with our own production automated process which is something we could never have before,” said Tony Rudeforth - McCains senior technical shift engineer.
