Food Manufacturing

Award recognises robots' return on investment

ABB's robotics business won Food Processing magazine's Robotics and Automation award for the installation of two robotic lines at the Honeytop Speciality Food plant in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. Nigel Platt, ABB's UK sales and marketing manager for robotics, says: "The award is the culmination of a lot of hard work by ABB engineers, and our channel partner, RG Luma, who designed, built and installed the production lines."

4th June 2010

Robotics in the food and drink industries - free event

Food Processing Faraday, in association with ABB Robotics, will be demonstrating novel technologies from across different industry sectors in a one-off event for UK food and drink businesses, Evolution of Technology - shaping your future. The innovative day, to be held on Wednesday 16 June 2010 at ABB's headquarters in Milton Keynes, will be showing how to use science and technology to advantage by means of presentations, workshops and hands-on demonstrations. Alan Spreckley, of ABB Robotics, will provide an insight into the past, present and future of robotics.

4th June 2010

See the Fanta Can Challenge - live at MACH 2010

Visitors to MACH 2010 can go to Stand 5931 in Hall 5 can see the 'Fanta Can Challenge,' which has already generated considerable interest with thousands of video viewers on YouTube. Two ABB IRB 1600 six-axis robots will negotiate a metal pin at high speeds between one tray of drink cans positioned just 1mm apart to demonstrate the precise synchronisation, accuracy and repeatability of the robots at high speed. ABB's latest IRC5 controller makes this possible with MultiMove, a function embedded in the IRC5 software that permits robot groups to handle more complex tasks than ever before in full co-ordination.

3rd June 2010

Parker Domnick Hunter wins Queen's Award for Enterprise

Parker Domnick Hunter, a division of Parker Hannifin, has won the Queen's Award for Enterprise 2010 in the International Trade category. The Queen's Award recognises Parker Domnick Hunter's success in developing new export markets for its ranges of gas separation technologies, including the MAXIGAS nitrogen generation systems. These are used in, for example, a industrial, food and beverage processing, modified atmosphere packaging, chemical blanketing, laser cutting, and oil and gas applications.

19th May 2010

WDS unveils clamps and castors at Machine Building show

WDS was exhibiting products from across its extensive range at the 2010 Machine Building & Automation show. One of the highlights on its stand was the new Toggle Clamp Lite, a range of lighter-duty toggle clamps. While the company is still selling its popular medium- and heavy-duty ranges, the light-duty clamps are suitable for applications that do not require high clamping loads, yet it is still necessary to have the security of an over-centre clamping action.

16th May 2010

Predictions for the Eastern European automation market

Ion Andronache, president of Syscom 18, a Romanian company that delivers integrated systems for industrial automation, states: "Although in 2010 the Eastern Europe market for automation and measurement systems will not be much different in volume compared to 2009, a slight increase is still possible and the competition will be tougher. As a result, the companies in the field will treat with utmost seriousness any investment project, regardless of size, and will target other business segments, less exploited so far. We expect more investments in power stations, for example."

17th April 2010

Positioning technology for nanometre precision direct-write laser

One of the many varied and interesting research projects at the University of Southampton's ORC (Optoelectronics Research Centre) involves direct UV laser writing of integrated optical circuits on specialised glass substrates and on its own patented 'flat' optical cable. With application potential from telecom network components through to lab-on-a-chip (LOC) biological and chemical sensors, the photonic circuits are produced with the help of nanometre level precision positioning systems and motion controls from Aerotech.

2nd March 2010

Cadbury's options on energy

Brammer has delivered sweet savings to Cadbury, huge energy cost savings and significant reductions in carbon emissions.

15th February 2010

A dark tale of blood, lust and chocolate...

If there's one thing better than a wild night out, then it's a quiet night in. In fact boys, give us a Chardonnay, a romcom and bar of velvety smooth chocolate, and quite often we girls can happily get by without you. Perhaps a woman can't live on chocolate alone, but she can have a darned good try. Interestingly, though we girls all have our own favourites when it comes to makes of chocolate, none of us ever seems to feel the need to convert friends to our particular brand, and we never feel we have to put down another girl's choice. I wonder if you lads can say the same about football teams, computers or underwear?

15th February 2010