Food Manufacturing

Traditional winch motors superseded by PMW design

Winches mounted on military and other vehicles have traditionally used brushed motors that are heavy and inefficient, and typically unable to operate continuously for more than a few minutes before overheating. Tasked with addressing this issue, Printed Motor Works has developed a new motor which, paired with a suitable electronic controller, will be able to deliver vastly improved performance. The brushless motor has a much greater efficiency and so produces less heat, enabling a much better duty cycle.

24th November 2016

Comfort zone for hot converters

Over the last few years, Rittal’s LCP Rack Industry system has proved highly effective in its ability to cool power electronics in switchgear. Rittal has now developed a new generation of these air/water heat exchangers with numerous improvements and advantages, aimed at improving its performance for control and switchgear manufacturers, as well as users of the machinery and equipment.

23rd November 2016

Less of a grind

Coffee is big business. It’s the most popular drink worldwide with around two billion cups consumed every day, while in the UK we drink around 70 million cups per day. In the UK we spend around £950 million on coffee and while around three quarters of all UK adults drink instant coffee, around 50% drink fresh ,or ground coffee, and this ‘premium’ sector is one of one of the fastest growing sectors of the market. Whilst there are many new coffee products available which aim to provide a premium cup of coffee more quickly, such as special powder blends and pods, for the purists it has to be real coffee beans.

23rd November 2016

Creamery can generate power from cheese waste

A new anaerobic digestion plant built by Lake District Biogas at First Milk’s Aspatria creamery site in Cumbria has been installed to generate bio-methane. It is saving over £3m per year, while supplying up to 25% of the creamery’s energy requirements. SCADA provides full control and visualisation of the system.

23rd November 2016

Bulgin to launch M Series interconnects at electronica 2016

Bulgin will be unveiling a new range of industrial automation components on stand B2.271 at this year's electronica exhibition. This bi-annual event, which takes place from the 8th to the 11th of November in Munich, will be the first opportunity to see the new M Series interconnects, which have been designed to offer flexible connectivity options for a variety of rugged automation applications.

8th November 2016

Avalue Technology brings new embedded SBCs ECM-APL & EBM-APL

Avalue Technology Inc. is bringing the new embedded single board computers, ECM-APL (3.5") and EBM-APL (5.25"), equipped with the Intel Apollo lake processor, to the market. These new SBCs are designed for dealing with the rising demands on low-cost, light weight and system performance and expect to offer users a new option for entry applications.

1st November 2016

Pneumatic valves for SIL1 or SIL2 safety control systems

Burkert Fluid Control Systems has developed a series of innovative safety valves that can be incorporated into new designs or retrofitted to existing control systems. This will be of particular interest to industries with highly automated processes, such as food and beverage or pharmaceuticals, facing challenges in terms of maintaining a safe environment and complying with current regulations and standards.

26th October 2016

Servo electric cylinders gain momentum in replacing pneumatics

Dunkermotoren says its CASM servo electric cylinders are increasingly being specified by machine builders as an alternative to pneumatic cylinders where there is a need to improve performance, increase output and minimise downtime and product rejections.

24th October 2016

Robot programming via PLC is key in food plant

A collaboration between motion control and robotics specialist Yaskawa and a leading intralogistics and packaging company has resulted in the development of an automatic robot-based palletising cell which takes robotics handling to new levels of sophistication. The food logistics system developed by MPS Food Logistics Systems based in the Netherlands features a Profinet interface which enables the Motoman handling robotic system from Yaskawa to be programmed and operated via a Siemens TIA portal.

24th October 2016

Robot vision aids food product inspection

Collaborative robots are aiding productivity as food and drink manufacturers safe guard their quality, as Earl Yardley of Industrial Vision Systems explains.

24th October 2016

Products

Traditional winch motors superseded by PMW design

Comfort zone for hot converters

Less of a grind

Creamery can generate power from cheese waste

Bulgin to launch M Series interconnects at electronica 2016

Avalue Technology brings new embedded SBCs ECM-APL & EBM-APL

Pneumatic valves for SIL1 or SIL2 safety control systems

Servo electric cylinders gain momentum in replacing pneumatics

Robot programming via PLC is key in food plant

Robot vision aids food product inspection