To add bun production to Laval, the company extended the existing building by 48,000 sq ft, bringing the under-roof total to 250,000 sq ft on the 32-acre site. All the utilities that power processing equipment run under the floor.
"When we designed the plant, we put electrical connections under the floor to prevent putting in utility drops from the ceiling," Mr. Samson said. "It's far more sanitary to do this, but you have to know where each machine will be before you pour the floor."
Multi-Marques completed its bun plant project on-time and within budget.
PLANT INFRASTRUCTURE. When MultiMarques schedules bun, or petits pains, production at Laval, cluster hamburger buns and hot dog rolls each represent one-third of total output. .
Variety items, the other third, don't require the same volume but are harder to run because of their many set ups and the operator knowledge required.
The bakery's Reimelt system, installed with the 1992 bread line, supplies the bulk and minor ingredients for bun production, too. To gear up for buns, the bakery added another flour scale, a second pneumatic blender, two staging bins, extra blowers and piping. The blenders and bins serve either line, as required.
"We doubled our flour line speeds," Mr. Samson said. Two lines with conveying rates up to 200 kg per minute bring flour capacity to 400 kg per minute, supplied from the existing single 75-tonne(150,000 lb) whole-wheat and two tOO-tonne (220,000-1b) white flour silos.
For buns, however, the bakery added a liquid brew system, a two-tank, glycol-cooled, 50,000-liter (t3,000-gal) cream yeast system and two double-reservoir 25,000-liter (6,600-gal) tanks for high-fructose corn syrup and shortening handle bulk liquids for both bread and buns.
For buns, however, the bakery added a liquid brew system, consisting of two 3,500-kg (7,700-1b) tanks plus a heat exchanger and clean-in-place capability, which it shares with the cream yeast system.While the ingredient system supplies water,
"We have three bun plants. The other two operate with water brews, so we stayed with liquid brew here," Mr. Samson said.
Blended dry ingredients, liquid materials and fermented liquid brew meet at the ETMW #26 150-hp overtilt bun dough mixer. Batches weigh about 2,700 to 2,800 lb and run every 18 to 20 minutes, although some items require smaller batches.
The bakery continues to staff its bun line with a mixer operator. "We're trying to go fully automatic," Mr. Samson said. "Bread doughs are 100% automatic. But bun doughs are more slack, more difficult to discharge on fully automatic mode.
"We asked Campbell Technologies to put the dough pump on a load cell," he continued. When the wheel-mounted pump is in operating position, the legs retract upward, seating the pump assembly on the load cell. Weights read out in a panel mounted on the mixer. These measurements allow comparison of finished dough weights with the amounts of incoming ingredients.
The Camtech 3,500-lb-capacity transfer and degassing pump moves dough to the vertical dough transfer conveyor, which discharges it onto a reversing belt that alternately feeds the dough hoppers on the two Camtech Precision Bun Systems (PBS).
NEXT GENERATION MAKEUP. Bun makeup takes place under electronic control. The Camtech rotary divider senses internal operating pressure toprevent further processing of underweight dough pieces. When pressure levels move out of range, the divider head retracts, sending dough balls into the catch pan.
The PBS uses two peristalic metering pumps instead of one to feed dough to the rotary motion cut-off. Mr. Samson credited the pumps' sinusoidal design with gentle dough handling. The system's jacketed dough developer is mounted within the machine. The table supporting the rounding section provides cooling for the belts, another quality control mechanism. Multi-Marques engineers and bakers tested two sets of rounder bars, one on each
Additionally, the bun system employs several new concepts for pan indexing. Zero-pressure rollers receive the bun pans from the pan return conveyor. Small, powerful bar magnets move pans into position to receive the moulded dough pieces with a synchronized, continuous motion.
PAN ROBOT. Multi-Marques chose a first of-its-kind pan system. The Robocap, by Emtrol employs two pick-and-place robots whose long, many-fingered arms stack and unstack bun pans. The robots pick up pans 10 at a time, carry them over to the line infeed or back to stacking rails. Arms travel quickly to pick and carry, but they slow down when about one centimeter above the stack or conveyor. Placement of the pan is smooth, quiet, gentle and straight.
The system stacks the pans onto skids consisting of parallel rails, configured to the exact dimensions of the pan. When in stacks, all the weight of the pan rests on its external rib, not the pan cups. Stacks can weigh more than 1,000 lb, yet pans stack high without stress or deformation. When stacks reach full height, an Emtrol shuttle cart removes the loaded skid and stores it. Multi-Marques now stocks nine pan styles for its bun lines, a total of 19,000 pans. At full capacity, the pan system will handle 25,000 pans in 12 styles.
Pans travel from the unstacker and through empty pan return conveyors, leading with their 8-across edge - the slow direction. At the PBS, they turn to run in the fast 6-across direction.
The pan systems PLC tracks each pan. Conveyors that feed pans to the two PBS lines slow down or speed up to match the speed of bun makeup.
"We can control the gap between pans and feed pans, spiral coolers and packaging systems at proper speeds and exact rates," Mr. Samson said. CADEC Automation built the controls for the liquid brew system, pan system and spiral cooler.
