Wymbs Engineering
MAIN PIC: Wymbs’ Cream Injection Man- ifold
“
...so we had to develop a brand- new solution that picks the products up from their base. It’s a bit like a magic carpet trick, all of which is controlled using Allen-Bradley architecture”
The driving factor for Wymbs is to offer machines that do not just perform a set function, but rather solves the customers problems. Wymbs knows the challenges that a modern food producer faces with constantly changing demand from their customers. The company puts itself in the producer’s shoes, asking: “will this machine benefit my sales and flexibility?” “will it pay me back?” “will it help me grow?”
In the world of large-batch and mass production, the creation of similarly appealing artisan-like products relies heavily on a machine’s design, its operation and the automation behind it. With this in mind, Wymbs Engineering recently undertook a demanding project for a customer that wanted a fresh cream processing line. But there were certain instructions; the client wanted to replace its current labour- intensive process. The machine also had to be capable of producing two main products – apple turnovers and scones – both which would come in different varieties. As a result, these had to be
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easily changed and managed by the machine’s recipe functions. “At the time, they were producing these products by hand, so the reduction in labour with increased throughput were the primary targets. But other considerations they required included uniformity of product and reduced waste,” explains Kevin Wymbs, Director. In addition to its advanced depositor technology, which employs 17 Allen-Bradley® Kinetix servo axes to control the motion of the depositors, conveyors and transfer units, Wymbs also had to develop a unique transfer unit to cater for the foibles of the delicate products in the line. This was required take plastic skillets from a denester and pick and place the made products from the end of the line into the skillets and then onto an onward processing conveyor for packaging. “We couldn’t use robots with grippers,”
Wymbs explains, “so we had to develop a brand- new solution that picks the products up from their base. It’s a bit like a magic carpet trick, all of which is controlled using Allen-Bradley
architecture. We’ve not seen the design anywhere else, so we’ve not copied it, but we have enabled it using Allen-Bradley control products”. This new Scone and Apple Turnover Processing line, as a result, delivers 25 cycles per minutes, which equates to 9,000 products an hour from a baked shell through to packaging which offers the customer far more flexible for product variations and changeover during a shift.
Here are just a few of the key functions of this new, innovative line:
• Horizontal cut of both scones and turnover • Place ‘lid’ on conveyor behind base • Align base for depositing • Apple puree or jam deposit • Cream swirl or multi-spot deposit • Three depositing stations for different configurations
• Transfer unit in conjunction with an Acetate De-nester
• Made products are automatically transferred into acetates and downstream conveyor.
Kennedy’s Confection November 2020 23
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