The Ishida Europe stand (C80) at this year’s PPMA Show will focus on the latest models from the company’s multihead weigher, checkweigher and bagmaker ranges, demonstrating the speed, accuracy and reliability that enables them to maximise production throughput and efficiencies for a huge variety of applications.
A major highlight will be the introduction of a new value for money checkweigher range. The DACS-W-012-N model incorporates Ishida’s advanced technology, including digital signal processing (DSP) and state-of-the-art load cell, to offer high speeds and pinpoint accuracy. Also on display will be a second model, featuring a colour touch screen that provides easy to follow instructions for line operators, with online help, self-diagnostics and fault finding.
Both models support Ishida’s IDCS data capture system, a simple and affordable software that can help factory managers make decisions regarding investment in new packing machinery or changes to existing operations and procedures by visualising and indicating where cost savings can be made.
The IDCS records data from every pack weighed by up to 100 checkweighers into a single secure database, providing a rich source of valuable production data. The reports generated can indicate, for example, how much product food manufacturers and packers are giving away in any given time period (per minute, hour, shift, week, month or year), or how often lines are not operating when they should. Companies can use the information to increase line efficiencies by identifying the causes of downtime.
The Atlas-122 bag maker for snack products features a double rotary jaw motion and superior control technology, to combine fast speeds with accurate film registration and tight bag seals. The benefits of this technology are that it saves raw materials, minimises film loss and reduces downtime for film changes.
From its multihead weigher ranges, Ishida will showcase models from its R, RS and fresh food weigher (FFW) series. The R and RS models offer significant reductions in product giveaway, owing to the unprecedented speed at which they can calculate and check weight combinations. Increased calculation speed also adds to overall efficiency, as the weighers practically never find it necessary to dump a weighment because it is over- or underweight. Operator intervention is kept to a minimum by an automatic feed control system and by the self-tuning vibratory system which automatically adjusts vibration amplitude to optimise product flow.
The FFW weigher was specifically designed to handle fresh sticky products such as diced and minced meat, poultry, fish and fruit. Its design features pool hoppers arranged in a linear fashion and fed by belts from an infeed table. The operator is stationed within comfortable reach of the product infeed and adjusts the flow of product so that each hopper receives a roughly equal amount.
Using Ishida’s proven multihead weighing technology, the computer selects the combination of hoppers that most closely matches the target weight. A set of booster hoppers under the weigh hoppers holds product not initially selected by the computer. This frees up the weigh hoppers to accept more products and thus generate additional weight combinations, which further increases weighing speed and accuracy.
