In-Line checkweighers
November 1st 2006

Three recently installed wireless Vantage In-Line Checkweighers have brought high speed benefits to the production process at Nicholas & Harris, Salisbury

Three high speed 'Vantage' In-Line Check-weighers supplied by Stevens Weighing Group are playing a crucial role at specialist cake and bread manufacturer Nicholas and Harris, at their upgraded bakery in Salisbury. The company is part of the expanding Finsbury Food Group plc, one of the UK's leading manufacturers of premium added-value 'morning goods' and speciality cakes.

The Salisbury site currently produces a range of premium and speciality breads.

Turnover is around £10m with the vast majority going to Waitrose, although other accounts are growing. Site capacity is in excess of £15m, with good growth opportunities to achieve that in the next 3 years. Nicholas & Harris have already invested over £750,000 in upgrading the bakery, and extending the Goods Out area. This will enable them to further improve their offering following the recent growth, and also to allow further sales increases to be brilliantly serviced.

The Checkweighers, which have integral in-feed and out-feed conveyors, are used to weigh a variety of breads including fruit loaves. The units are capable of offering weighing speeds in excess of 200 items per minute with the utmost precision, and each weigher is fitted with a high speed air blow reject system and reject bin.

Although the main role of the Checkweighers is to ensure Nicholas and Harris comply with average weight legislation, the Vantage technology brings unrivalled levels of data capture, reporting and analysis to their factory floor. The units collect critical data on average and minimum weight, together with comprehensive SPC information including throughput by product, batch and date.

Reports are sent back to a central PC via a wireless LAN enabled interface, thereby ensuring optimum data security and location versatility. This transfer is done automatically and Stevens claim that a key feature of their Checkweigher design is that modules are not dependent on the system in which they are operating. Each of the machines carries a local database so even if the wireless network drops out, critical data is not lost.

The machine set up can be done locally via the user friendly Vantage touch screen console or from the central SQL Management Reporting PC. The minimalist stainless steel design facilitates cleaning and the conveyors can run independently of the PC for maintenance purposes.

Even the motorised conveyor belts have maximum uptime in mind, featuring the unique 60 second belt change mechanism (pictured below) to keep line stoppages to a minimum. On the same note, the conveyor sections have a separate electrical circuit to enable them to run independently of the weighing mechanism to enable routine servicing without your lines grinding to a halt!

Stevens' UK Sales Manager Stuart Hunt is very positive about the benefits of their in-line check-weighing systems and as he explains: "Although we have extensive experience in a broad range of weighing equipment and systems, we are relative new-comers to the dynamic weighing market and our first In-Line Checkweigher was only developed approximately six years ago. The catalyst for this investment was the somewhat negative feedback we were receiving from an increasing number of customers, highlighting the fact that they were dissatisfied with the service and support being provided by traditional In- Line Checkweigher companies. We have a team of over 35 well-established fieldservice engineers and this support network across the UK, together with the robust and versatile features of our machines, ensures that our customers no longer have an unacceptable weak link in their weighing process. It's been a pleasure to work with Nicholas & Harris and their forward thinking and innovative attitude has helped a great deal in the development of the new Wireless In-Line Checkweighers"

For Nicholas and Harris the benefits of the Vantage systems have been very rapid. As their MD Simon Staddon concludes: "The Stevens check- weighers have brought a number of important improvements to our production. The reduction in paperwork has been significant and we can now easily access the comprehensive and specific data relating to particular batches at the touch of a button. This not only allows us to demonstrate due diligence to our customers, but also provides us with a much clearer real-time picture of what is going on during the manufacturing process."