Ishida Europe logo

Ishida helps Vaasan & Vaasan to keep bakery production flowing smoothly

31/12/2002

At its Kotka site in eastern Finland, Vaasan & Vaasan makes a variety of fresh buns and pastries for distribution all over the country. There are as many as 20 different products, ranging from plain buns to products with sticky fillings. Yet, with a national consumer base to serve, each production run can be quite large. The cooling and packing arrangements therefore need to be able to cope with a wide range of output volumes, and with frequent product changeovers. Above all, the product has to be turned out quickly in order to reach the retail outlets with as much as possible of its 8-day shelf life remaining.

New line

During 2001, Vaasan & Vaasan modified its fresh products section in order to improve performance and profitability. Packing, which had previously been manual, was automated, with the installation of a 14-head Ishida mutlihead weigher, sited over two bagmakers.

A long spiral conveyor allows the product to cool while bringing it above the height of the Ishida weighing equipment. From the end of the spiral conveyor, a special vibrating conveyor carries it across to the multihead weigher.

Coping with product changes without halting production

"With this type of baking operation", says Arto Pekkanen, Production Director for toastbread and coffee bread, "you don’t want to have to stop the flow at the production end every time you have a product changeover or a film change at the packing end."

To solve this problem, the new installation has a special storage conveyor above the multihead weigher. While the packing system is halted for a product changeover, the new product from the cooling conveyor is diverted past the multihead weigher and into the storage conveyor. As soon as the bagmakers are ready, the storage conveyor is reversed and the weigher now receives the contents of both the cooling conveyor and the storage conveyor.

"For this to work", says Pekkanen, “the Ishida weighing machine has to be able to handle this ’double flow’. That means weighing these large, often sticky, products at 80 wpm. In fact it copes easily with this."

A choice based on experience

Vaasan & Vaasan had previously had an Ishida multihead weigher installed at its Joutseno factory to weigh bake-off products (i.e. products requiring further baking before consumption). As a result, the company was very confident as to the reliability of Ishida weighing equipment and its accompanying local service and support. "We even co-opted our local Ishida representative onto our planning committee", says Planning Manager Mikko Pohjanlehto.

More speed, less labour

"With manual packing we were getting 400 to 500 bags per hour with 2 people devoted entirely to packing. Now, at our normal running speed, we are getting 3,000 packs per hour”, says Arto Pekkanen.

Low overall cost of ownership

The Ishida weighing machine is exceptionally easy to clean and operate, keeping changeover time to a minimum. Its speed and efficiency lead Mikko Pohjanlehto to predict that payback will be well within the company’s general two-year target. "As well as coping economically with current production", he says, "I am confident that we have weighing and packing capacity for another 3 years’ expansion."