Overview
As mass producers of baking ingredients, production and QC managers were concerned about the consistency and productivity of their operation in Pleasant View, Utah. Each day this state of the art production facility produces thousands of pounds of baking ingredients like cookie dough and cake icings, for retail bakeries nationwide. To keep batching lines efficient and cost effective they knew they needed a control system that could ensure repeatability of recipes and accuracy of ingredients that are automatically and manually delivered to processing equipment.

Basically, we conceived and implemented a recipe management system and automatic batching control system. We configured production lines with dedicated Allen-Bradley SLC-500 controllers that are responsible for controlling and monitoring their respective batching lines and related equipment. Each controller maintains accurate metering and interface to an existing sugar delivery system and liquid tank farm system; and maintains consistent process feed rates, equipment speeds, temperature control, etc.

We also developed a custom recipe management system in Visual Basic and Access to provide managers with a means of developing custom recipes and downloading them to the batching control systems. Once a recipe is downloaded, the operator initiates the batching operation. Not only does the system accurately measure and automatically feed ingredients, it also prompts the operator to manually add pre-measured ingredients directly into the batch at the appropriate time.

Features/Benefits
• Highly distributed architecture allows the production lines to be controlled from multiple operator interface stations.
• Fast communications between operator interfaces and PLCs over dedicated Data Highway Plus network.
• Process equipment status indicated by color graphics allows the operator to visually discern status immediately.

Development Tools
• RSLogix & RSLinx
• PanelBuilder32
• Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0
• Microsoft Access Database

Client Comments: "Our new recipe management system allows us to produce a more consistent product by stepping the operator through the proper recipe sequence. Our new automatic batching system increased our production rates by 30%."

H. C. Brill Engineering Manager