Saves labour and cheese
July 1st 2006

To help reduce production overheads in its cheese portioning lines, Ilchester Cheese Company has invested in a RTS Flexible Systems Pixcell robotic picking unit. The Pixcell unit is installed on a line portioning blended cheese of about 20g at 150 portions per minute and placing them into consumer packs for retail sale.

The primary reason for investing in a robotic picking unit is to save labour costs on the line where the current arrangement has two operators per shift. Beyond this immediate reduction in overheads, is a saving in yield, as the cheeses portions can vary in thickness.

As it is difficult for the operators to differentiate between thicknesses on20g portions at production speeds, to ensure a minimum packaged weight for sale, some cheese is being given away above the minimum thickness. The Pixcell will detect oversize portions and remove them for recycling.