Baking & Snack - November 2019 - 82

INGREDIENT HANDLING

Third-party programmers
can often develop
interfaces or even
mobile apps to help
with ingredient handling
systems' process
management.
Shick Esteve

"When transaction reporting occurs - beginning with
receiving all the way through to the finished good - you
have transactions going to and from the MES system to
keep track of all the ingredients, including where they
are and the location where the packages were sent," said
Kevin Pecha, AZO sales manager.
"That way, should you ever have to do a recall, you'll
know the batch or lot included the particular ingredient, along with its lot number," he added. "It has to do
with constant communication between the plant floor
and the MES system to know that as you're receiving
something as a work in progress, it's reporting back to
the MES. That way, you have a good record as to where
the lot number is and into what finished good it went."
In the old days, a recall impacted massive amounts of
product, and that was a potential hit to company's brand.
One adulterated ingredient or mislabeling could lead to
consumer skepticism and product going to waste, even
those items that weren't directly affected. Today, ingredient handling systems can track not only the lots but also
specific production runs within those lots.
"Now, if you identify an issue - whether it pertained to
sanitation or an ingredient recall - you can isolate it within the bin as opposed to isolating an entire lot of what was
received," Mr. Adams noted. "It can divvy up the lot a bit."
In the case of a recall, Bühler's WinCos system offers
bakers easy access to information starting with finished
products to trace back which ingredients were used and
from where they originated. "We're becoming more effective in how we can analyze that information quickly and
respond to customers," Mr. Hunter said. "It's a fair question: 'If there was a problem with an ingredient, which
products did I put it into?' "
Similarly, Zeppelin's PRISMA Enterprise Resource
Planning Interface allows for seamless integration with

82 Baking & Snack November 2019 / www.bakingandsnack.com

ERP and MES systems to make data easily accessible, which
comes in handy in a recall situation. When the PRISMA
system scales raw materials out of the storage location,
the raw material and lot codes are recorded along with the
quantities being scaled, which are then deducted from the
lot code. "This allows the database to provide an easily accessible record of which lot the raw material came from and
for which batches to fulfill specific orders," Mr. Ryon noted.
"This provides one-up-one-down supply chain traceability."
In addition to traceability through data, the way ingredients like flour travel through the system can ensure
food safety and even help bakers with FSMA compliance.
Some bakers might have heard concerns about how their
processes deliver flour to silos and any potential risk of
traceability issues that could fail to meet the spirit of FSMA.
"It is difficult to determine the lot number if the older material is returned to the top of the silo when new raw material
is also being put in," Mr. Pecha said. To address any such
concerns, AZO designs a one-way vacuum system that
does not allow dust to return back to the original source
at the silo. "The scales have their own filtration system to
separate the powder from the air," Mr. Pecha explained.
For existing systems, AZO developed a parallel system that includes a secondary loop that goes from the
silo to the mixer scale and then comes back to an intermediate receiver in the same convey line. "If any dust
gets put back into that convey line, it's isolated from the
transfer system," Mr. Pecha said.
Closing the loop allows bakers to focus on tracing
quality bulk ingredients as they enter the process.

Scanning it in
Collecting, analyzing and using all this data, whether for
scheduling, quality control or traceability, all begins with
how the data gets into the system.

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Baking & Snack - November 2019

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