Monitoring Height of Tortilla Dough [Success Story]
The Q50 sensor monitors the height of dough before it is squeezed into die rollers to form tortillas. The solution helps maintain product consistency and facilitate production speed.
Customer Requirements: Continuous monitoring of dough thickness
Solution: L-GAGE® Q50
Why Banner? Support and performance—the Q50 provides an economical and efficient solution to the customer’s production issues, and Banner’s local support team was readily available to help with setup and installation
Customer Benefits
Product consistency—the Q50 provides real time feedback on dough thickness, helping the customer produce a more consistent product and eliminate waste
Improved production speed—with continuous monitoring of dough consistency, production hiccups are eliminated, allowing the customer’s line to run more smoothly
Background
A US producer of authentic Mexican foods, such as tortillas and tostadas, strives to provide the best-tasting and freshest products for its consumers. In order to achieve this goal, consistency on the packaging line is key.
Challenges
The company was looking for a way to eliminate inconsistencies in their tortillas. Because they did not have a way to continuously monitor dough thickness on the production line, the dough nips often turned out either too high or too low, resulting in irregular tortilla sizes and weights. If a package of tortillas is under weight, it must be scrapped. In order to help eliminate waste and improve product consistency, the company worked with Banner to find a monitoring solution.
Solution
The tortilla manufacturer now uses the L-GAGE Q50’s output to control a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD), a motor system that controls the speed of the line’s conveyor. The Q50 continuously monitors the height of dough that accumulates between nip rolls before they are squeezed into the rollers to form tortillas. The VFD either speeds up or slows down based on the change in distance from the sensor. As a result, the customer is not only able to maintain a consistent product and eliminate waste, but they are able to improve line speed by minimizing inconvenient production halts.
Featured Products
Q50 Series LED Measurement Sensor
Combines laser-like performance with LED safety and economy. Ideal for dry-bulk level measurement, package filling, and roll-diameter measurement.