Ishida consistency critical to efficient fish packing line
A large 14 head multihead weigher with seven litre hoppers from Ishida Europe’s advanced RV series is
providing high levels of speed, accuracy and reliability as part of a recent major investment at one of the Netherlands’ top fish processors. Established for over 30 years, NorthSeafood is a leading supplier of deep-frozen fish to both the retail and foodservice sectors.
Facts and Figures
Compact
Upgrading its packing process presented a challenge, as there was only a small amount of space available.
Efficient
This new weighing and filling solution has significantly reduced product breakages.
Accurate
The standard deviation for a 25g weight, is just 0.165g.
Flexible
The dairy can now process a diverse range of product mixtures and more easily implement new ideas from the marketing department.
Challenge
The company recently installed a second packing line at its factory at Urk in the province of Flevoland, while
at the same time upgrading the existing line for the fast and efficient handling of its breaded fish products.
Both lines feature Ishida weighers and as part of the new investment, Ishida project managed the installation of the RV weigher together with the gantry, feed and filling systems, which were supplied by its partner MACS Machinebouw.
The availability of the second line has given NorthSeafood the additional flexibility to enable the company to react quickly to new customer requirements and the development and introduction of new products or pack formats while maintaining throughput for its existing products. Both lines need to be able to operate continuously and ensure that the high quality of the products is preserved throughout.
Solution
As part of this the reliability and consistency of the Ishida weighers are essential. The weighers are handling breaded fish products packed into cartons at target weights between 160g and 300g. After weighing, each portion of fish is discharged into a
holding hopper and then placed directly into the tray.
Typical speed for a 300g carton is 40 packs per minute, enabling the weigher to handle around 720kg of product each hour, with weighing accuracy for this challenging product to within 2-3%. Importantly, information on the overall speed of the packing process is fed back down the line, enabling the speed and temperature of the freezing process to be adjusted in order to ensure a smooth flow of product, with no unwanted build-up.
Our Ishida weighers deliver a consistently excellent performance, they are fast and accurate and easy to set-up and operate.
The latest Ishida weigher to be installed incorporates a unique newly-developed software feature that helps to deliver even greater weighing efficiency. For most multihead weighers, if a single weigh head contains too much product, it must be rejected. By rejecting the overweight product, the weigher cannot then deliver a good weight during the rejection stage. Ishida’s new No-Miss-Cycle software means that if a successful weight combination can be achieved on the seven heads on the different side of the weigher from the overweight head, then this successful weight can be discharged while simultaneously the overweight head is emptied through a separate discharge chute and outlet. This clever system prevents the weigher from losing a cycle and enables maximum speed and throughput to be maintained.
A further software benefit is the ability to monitor the time that product has stayed in any hopper and reject it after a specified period if it has not been selected. This avoids the potential for frozen product to thaw while in the weigher.
NorthSeafood prides itself on the quality of all its products and ensuring a fast and efficient packing operation is a vital part of this.
In addition, to maintain a consistent temperature during the weighing process, both weighers are fully enclosed. Their robust waterproof construction also delivers maximum hygiene and ease of cleaning.
NorthSeafood is a long-established customer of Ishida Europe with its first multihead weigher, supplied in 2004, still in operation, handling the weighing of 5kg family size packs in another part of the factory.
“Our Ishida weighers deliver a consistently excellent performance,” confirms Juriaan Romkes, the company’s Technical Service Engineer.
“They are fast and accurate and easy to set-up and operate. NorthSeafood prides itself on the quality of all its products and ensuring a fast and efficient packing operation is a vital part of this.”
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