A Fruitful Introduction at West Newton

A new, money-saving approach to packhouse operations has been introduced successfully at West Newton Fruit in Bridgewater by systems builder M C & I Systems Ltd of Farnham, Surrey. West Newton Fruit are delighted with the results in their strawberry packhouse, achieving a significant reduction in overfill and a very substantial increase in productivity. This success story is based on M C & I’s well-proven PacKing software suite for measurement
and control in the food industry. M C & I say that West Newton’s experience is in line with other users and that the approach could have potential benefits for all fruit and vegetable packers.

Traditionally, it has been difficult to ensure that packing line operators fill their fruit or vegetable containers to the correct weights - whether under ‘minimum’ or ‘average’regulations - while maintaining a fast flow of work despatch. Unnecessary overfill means lost profits, while underfill can upset customers, consumers and Trading Standards alike.
But meeting customers’ urgent orders puts pressure on the time needed for careful work.

M C & I’s solution makes use of modern electronic scales with digital or ‘traffic lights’ displays, linked by cable or RF to a controlling Management computer. In use, the computer automatically adjusts the tolerance limits that control the checkweigher ‘traffic lights’, directing the packer to add or remove product from each container to meet legal weight requirements. The systems can control a single packer on one product, or an entire packhouse working on a variety of products and pack sizes.

Either way, the weight trend swiftly homes in on the declared weight as if by magic. The packer needs no arithmetic skills, is not required to reset the scales and performs no additional tasks. The weight of every pack filled is collected and logged at the computer where the packhouse Manager can access real time information about yield and productivity from individual packers or groups over any chosen time period.

Experience has shown that benefits to the packhouse comes from savings in time, trouble and money. Scales are reset from a single Management point, minimising change-over time and virtually eliminating the chance of wrong settings. Profits improve through cutting expensive giveaway without increasing the risk of underweights. And the packers themselves appreciate that the PacKing system allows them to work faster and more accurately. One packhouse even found that it had to double the number of lidders to keep up with increased production!

M C & I point out that for packhouses requiring more flexibility, the software can be configured to deal with average weight, minimum weight or catch weight, and accept data from in-line dynamic checkweighers and weigh-price labellers.

Spring 2005