Upgrading Hob Nobs production
Date: 18 November 2003
McVities choose fully-automatic rotary moulder
McVities, part of United Biscuits (UB), chose a new fully-automatic 540 Series rotary moulder from Baker Perkins to help upgrade one of the production lines at its Tollcross, Glasgow, plant.
The unit replaces a previous generation machine in a line producing the high-profile Hob Nobs brand, and low-fat products, as part of McVities drive towards optimum quality and consistency through totally automatic system control.
This latest development to the 540 Series offers motorised adjustment of all major functions - forcing roll gap, moulding roll scraper position, extraction roll position, and web tension.
Totally automatic control provides the benefits of improved consistency and repeatability of dough quality, rapid product changeover, and additional management information.
On previous generations of machine, only the extraction roll position was motorised. The rapid acceptance in the biscuit industry of SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) systems requiring complete plant operating data to function effectively, and a decline in the availability of experienced operators capable of accurate and consistent adjustment by hand, have motivated the introduction of full automation of the moulder controls.
Optimum settings are now identified and stored for every product, and re-selected at every changeover or start up. The new version of the rotary moulder retains the ability for operator adjustment, within limits chosen by plant management
This development of the 540 Series provides the ability to fully integrate the rotary moulder into a SCADA system, providing real time and historic data to optimise the performance of the whole plant.
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