Driving efficiencies with ancillary equipment
The confectionery equipment and systems market remains well-stocked with core machinery lines, and, as Daisy Phillipson reports, there’s an almost bewildering array of additional ancillary kit that manufacturers can add to their respective operations
In the dynamic world of industrial confectionery production, the integration of ancillary equipment, tools and services can be essential for optimising efficiency and flexibility. The right ancillary solutions enhance customisation, automation and connectivity, enabling confectionery producers to tailor production lines, streamline processes, and diversify product offerings.
As the industry faces growing challenges, these advancements can be key to maintaining competitive advantage and achieving operational excellence. As outlined by equipment specialist Aasted, besides its ability to customise machines or complete lines, the many add-on possibilities enable manufacturers to tailor-make and enhance equipment.
Aasted offers a variety of auxiliary equipment for confectionery and bakery production. In the world of chocolate, its ChocoMeter+ calculates the temper curve and index to quality assure chocolate production. Aasted’s ChocoAnalyzer, meanwhile, also enhances quality by measuring the contraction and expansion in chocolate and fillings.
The firm’s auxiliary portfolio also includes a range of feeding, sorting and cutting solutions, such as the Feeder Mixer, designed for adding inclusions into the chocolate mass between the tempering machine and the depositor.
Aasted’s Guillotines ensure slabs are precisely cut into bars, bites or smaller portions. For assorted chocolates, the company’s ChocoAssort is a robotic concept that precisely and accurately sorts chocolates into boxes. These are just a few of the add-ons the company offers to enhance and customise a production line.
Efficiency/cutting
For its part, machinery specialist Egan Food Technologies offers its customers a diverse range of auxiliary equipment that can be added on to its confectionery, bakery and snack processing lines to improve productivity. As noted by the firm, rather than the time-consuming process of mixing recipes in a separate location and transporting to a hopper or conveyor, Egan’s Inclusion Systems can mix and deliver ingredients to the front end of food processing lines.
When it comes to bar cutting, its Guillotine Bar Cutters can be integrated into full equipment lines or adopted as standalone modules. Egan offers two standard options: a pneumatic bar cutter and a servo, two-axis bar cutter, both of which can be upgraded with optional ultrasonic blades.
Another solution within its auxiliary range includes Cooling Tunnels that are engineered using current industry best practices and can be custom-built to meet processing needs for cooling cookies, bars, moulded chocolate and enrobed sweet treats.
Flexibility
As well as enhancing production, add-ons can also boost flexibility, allowing for a greater range of products – an attractive benefit in the ever-changing confectionery and bakery sectors. An example is the modular design of Handtmann Group’s filling and portioning machines, allowing for variability and plenty of scope to cater to new market demands.
Just one example in its diverse range of systems is the FS 525 all-in-one forming system, which itself is flexible thanks to its combination of two different forming principles. The optional use of a flattening belt and different structuring rollers further expands the given product design options.
Another example is the manual MSE 441 auxiliary device for forming and cutting. After the dough is pre-portioned by a Handtmann vacuum filler, the MSE 441 is able to accurately cut a variety of shapes thanks to exchangeable forming inserts.
Digital add-ons
In addition to additional machinery components, digital add-ons can significantly increase productivity. “Food manufacturers are experiencing greater challenges than ever before and must therefore find new ways to improve operational efficiencies,” comments Alf Taylor, managing director and CEO at tna.
“In an age of digital transformation and remote services, connectivity is king – intelligent communication between packaging systems and their auxiliary equipment allows operators to make their lines work even more efficiently, improving ROI.” The company offers a range of innovative processing and packaging systems with technology solutions that cater to the ever-evolving demands of the food industry.
Within the bakery sector, since machinery specialists Mecatherm and ABI have become sister companies under the TMG banner, the possibilities of turnkey solutions inside the group have been advanced. An example is Mecatherm’s turnkey production line for the ‘Authentik Baguette’, which can now integrate ABI’s solutions as options.
This includes the EYE-Q Quality Control System, a new solution that can be used at different steps of the production line to control the quality of products. Using artificial intelligence, it detects deviations at the source, creates alerts and suggests actions for swift defect correction to ensure maximum production yield.
Another digital solution is Mecatherm’s simulation software M-Plan, which plays out different production scenarios on the 3D model of the customer’s production line to help them achieve the best availability rate and the lowest changeover times. This digital tool is particularly adapted to turnkey solutions, and can also integrate equipment from third party suppliers to simulate production flows on a complete line.