Beginning with its first successful breakfast cereal, this American company has been producing nutritious ready-to-eat breakfast products for over 100 years. The company now produces over 20 well-branded breakfast foods and distributes them to hundreds of countries worldwide. Over its long history the company has seen many changes but its goal is still to transform grains and other materials into healthy family foods.

The Challenge
An engineer for the breakfast food company had worked with Sterling Systems and Controls Inc. in the past and had recommended Sterling for its current need to update its minor ingredient weighing and batching system for the production of waffles. The waffles were an existing product but changes in raw material availability continually led to evolving new product development.
    
In addition to increasing production flexibility, the company also saw opportunities for increased line efficiency. It wanted a system that would continue to maintain the high standards for a quality end product, but hoped that the new system could also lessen the batch cycle time and reduce ingredient waste. Doing so would increase profitability and give the company an edge in the highly competitive breakfast food market.

The Solution
The Sterling Systems and Controls Inc. engineering team met with the customer to review its current process. Major consideration was given to the customer’s formula data, batch cycle time, ingredient data, raw material storage, conveying distance, and space constraints, to custom-engineer a solution.
    
Inclusive within the minor ingredient weighing system were several engineering deliverables. The client was provided with a process and instrumentation diagram, electrical drawings, front panel layouts, mechanical assembly drawings, and a sequence of operation.
    
Upon approval, Sterling provided a comprehensive minor ingredient system, including 10 stainless steel minor ingredient supply bins and feeder assemblies, three scale hoppers and support frames, a bulk bag weighing system for sugar, a bulk bag unloader for sugar, three minor ingredient transfer hoppers, a vacuum transfer to the mixer system, a dust collection system, a PLC/panel view plus control system, as well as other related components.
    
All of the items were included within the scope of supply along with the engineering review of the application to determine the system requirements. The process is controlled by a PanelView Plus/PLC-based system. The batching portion consists of 10 raw material supply bins and a bulk bag sugar unit. The feeders feed three independent scale hoppers. Once the product is batched, a vacuum conveying system is utilized to transfer the batching ingredients to two mixing vessels to complete the process.

The Result
Now complete, the system is able to produce a batch every 15 minutes or less, to one of two mix vessels. The new system insures batch accuracy and integrity to obtain the customer’s high standards. The fully integrated system has increased line efficiency and profitability through automation. The customer’s other goals of reducing batch cycle time and decreasing waste have also been achieved. The system operates seamlessly and has improved the overall finished product, allowing the customer to maintain a high quality standard.
    
Sterling has had an ongoing working relationship with this client for the past decade. Sterling has designed and installed four custom-engineered systems for the breakfast food company and has become a trusted partner in developing solutions to aid in its continued growth.

For more information on Sterling Systems and Controls Inc., Sterling, IL, call 800-257-7214, email [email protected], or visit www.sterlingcontrols.com.

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