Statistical Quality Control system offers the solution
Every day, UK manufacturers of major international food brands export millions of pounds of product to a global market. All these countries have their own legal food weight requirements. It is therefore essential for manufacturers to ensure that all same-country packages conform to weight/fill limits specified by that government's legislation. The challenge is therefore on for food manufacturers to use the easiest and most accurate method of accommodating these quality variables often across wide product ranges.
This article explains how METTLER TOLEDO helped one food manufacturer - Lofthouses of Fleetwood to ensure that they conformed to all the relevant legal requirements.
Need to conform to worldwide regulations
Every day, UK manufacturers of major international food brands export millions of pounds of product to a global market. All these countries have their own legal food weight requirements. It is essential for manufacturers to ensure that all same-country packages conform to weight/fill limits specified by that government's legislation.
Lofthouse of Fleetwood Ltd is one such company that has had to meet this challenge across a particularly diverse market. Lofthouses has already earned its place in food manufacturing history as the company that, a hundred and thirty-five years ago, introduced Fisherman's Friend, a brand which is now recognised in over 120 countries worldwide.
Computerised solution
Currently producing more than 1 million packets a day, operations are already underway to increase manufacturing capacity as the company breaks into new markets and sets its sights on expanding existing ones.
The confidence and capacity to achieve such expansion has come from the company's foresight in employing the latest manufacturing technology to ensure quality of product and flexibility of production.
To enable Lofthouse to meet the legal requirements it installed the latest computerised multi-station control and monitoring system.
"Fisherman's Friends come in four pack sizes - 25g, 40g, 45g, and 50g. Currently in the range are seven product types - original extra strong, mint, aniseed, original sugar-free, sugar-free mint, sugar-free lemon and sugar-free apple and cinnamon.
"In order to export on a worldwide basis we have to be able to supply our range of products in any format - average weight, minimum weight and counted," explains Dennis Walker, Quality Assurance Manager.
Many of the smaller countries the company deals with specify a minimum weight format, which has no negative tolerances. For food manufacturers this can be the most difficult requirement to meet, as it offers no margin of flexibility.
A large proportion of their production is exported to mainland Europe where EC regulations require an average weight format. A specified lower to upper tolerance allows a minimal degree of flexibility in pack weight.
Large and burgeoning markets for Lofthouses are the USA and Canada where the legal requirement is for counted packs - a further variable, which has to be accommodated during the filling and weighing process.
Risk of overfilling minimised
The FreeWeigh system provides the company's production lines with the latest computerised and networked facility for control and monitoring of the filling and production processes. Data on fill quantity of the products being packed are calculated by FreeWeigh online taking legal and economic aspects into account. Necessary corrections for optimisation of the filling are shown to the operator as quickly as possible to reduce to a minimum the risk of overfilling product and thereby losing profit.
Solutions for each required action are clearly and unmistakably shown on the computer screen and control is simple and quick.
Effective production planning and control
"Ease of operation is one of the greatest assets of this system," says Mr Walker. "Its clearly displayed instructions and easily operated keys and fields mean that users can control their own processes. This in turn gives them an important level of responsibility and pride in their work. As the production department is responsible for quality control, this achievement of line responsibility is important to our operations."
FreeWeigh, with its powerful data import/export modules, is the ideal expansion for successful ERP and MRP 11 systems. It provides an uninterrupted flow of information anddata from the production lines. The system can be programmed to plan daily output, consolidate daily or batch production data, and analyse production data to achieve effective production planning and control.
System can be customised
FreeWeigh can be tailored to meet individual requirements. Lofthouse required a counting facility for their lozenges to meet the legal requirement in the USA for weight to be measured by numbers of lozenges per pack.
"It is possible to control count by weighing but the 'Quality Attributes' module which was offered as part of the FreeWeigh system provides an easier method of achieving the quality of accuracy we required," says Walker.
The Quality Attributes module of FreeWeigh permits the use of test plans, weighted attributes or custom-tailored handling directions. The attribute tests generate online alarms or prompt the operator to intervene if necessary.