A food and beverage manufacturer with global operations tasked Rospen to provide three continuous inclusion feed systems to deliver +/-1% feed rate accuracy with the flexibility to handle any combination of 14 difficult-to-handle confectionery ingredients and to be delivered in six packing formats. To add to the complexity of the project, equipment locations were split across two floors in an older and constrained part of the factory.

To meet the manufacturer’s high quality specification of <2% damage by weight per ingredient (including smashed, crushed, broken by the plant), we successfully handled 14 separate ingredients with care, including:

Whole Hazelnuts, Whole Almonds, Raisins, Cinder Toffee, Jellies, Candy Coated Chocolate Shells, Popping Candy, Praline, Cookies, Cola Cubes, Pretzels, Fudge Pieces, Malt Balls, Caramel Cubes.

Ingredient packaging varied with FIBC’s (800 kg), RIBC’s (800kg), Dollies (80kg), Octobins (300kg), Boxes (20 & 12.5kg), Cartons (<5kg). As a requirement, we loaded all packaging into the Rospen system. Our scope of work featured a Turnkey Delivery of a World Class Ingredient Handling system, including:

• Test, design and manufacture of the inclusion handling equipment.
• Design and build of the PLC, HMI, MCC and safety circuit panel.
• Design and development of the PLC and HMI control software and communications interface with the plant DCS.
• Delivery and off-loading of equipment.
• Mechanical installation of equipment and full commissioning.
• Supervision of electrical installation.
• Training of client’s production and maintenance personnel.