Food safety specialist Fortress Technology has been assisting select Mennel Milling plants in the United States to protect product quality, as well as safeguard its people, processes and productivity. Addressing machine downtime while simultaneously boosting operational excellence, the fifth-generational family firm highlights why they are supportive of the Fortress metal detection and checkweighing data software package.
Headquartered in Ohio, The Mennel Milling Company has been on a strategic expansion mission. Currently the seventh largest flour milling company in the US, for over 138 years Mennel Milling has traditionally produced and distributed its products in bulk quantities via rail car, semi-truck trailer, 2,000-lb super sacks and 50-lb bags. Recently however, with the addition of smaller, retail bag pack systems to address consumer demand, Mennel has prioritised the efficiency and performance of its quality control inspection and checkweighing solutions.
Always seeking to drive operational excellence and standardise equipment, Senior Corporate Packaging Engineer Dieter Flick is part of the Mennel team who has been charged with this effort. Utilising decades of experience, Dieter is responsible for maintaining and upgrading existing equipment, to enhance personnel safety and boost production efficiency.
ROBUST RAPTOR REDUCES DOWNTIME
Since installing its first Raptor Combination metal detector and checkweighing system in Newton, North Carolina on the packing line in 2023, Jonathan Mace reports that they have incurred no unplanned downtime on the new equipment so far. The Project Engineer cites simplicity, robustness and reliability as some of the biggest benefits of these machines.
Producing, packaging, and the inspection of approximately 750,000 lb. of flour daily requires durable and reliable machinery. Jonathan expands: “In a milling and packaging environment, screens can be easily damaged, and clearances can be extremely tight. Sometimes the products themselves contain salt and phosphate, which can be corrosive. The Raptor’s stainless steel construction has held up so far in these challenging environments.”
Currently the seventh largest flour milling company in the US, Mennel Milling is continually improving operations to bring their best to their customers.
Highlighting the plastic cover over the HMI panel as another useful design feature Jonathan adds: “This is a great addition as it helps to prevent damage to the screen. This plastic cover helps prevent loose flour circulating in the environment from settling onto the conveyor, building up and negatively impacting weighing accuracy.”
As a seven-story milling plant with a variety of moving machinery operating around the clock, vibration could potentially affect the performance and signals of sensitive metal detectors and checkweighers. The Fortress machines offer a couple of clever solutions that suppress this noise interference, ensuring that metal detector performance is not affected.
The Fortress Raptor Combi system installed at the Newton plant features a plastic cover to help prevent loose flour from settling onto the conveyor and negatively impacting weighing accuracy.
SUPPORTING DIGITAL CAPABILITIES
Tethering multiple front-end production machines to back-end reporting software in real time has been hailed as the next step in smart manufacturing. Using an Ethernet connection, Fortress Technology’s Contact 4.0 solution enables Mennel to review and collect data, as well as securely oversee the performance of an unlimited number of Fortress machines connected to the same network.
This has proven helpful to the team’s effort of making informed, well-timed production and brand assurance decisions, as well as maintenance schedules, notes Dieter: “Every morning, the production manager, the maintenance manager and I receive a report automatically generated by Contact 4.0 to assist in our decision making. Contact 4.0 clearly displays both the checkweigher’s histogram of batch weight distribution and bag data points to issue concerns over rejects, calculating the amount of product giveaway. These tools help us define problems with our filling system upstream.”
A morning report and histogram summary is automatically generated by Contact 4.0 at the Fostoria Ohio plant to assist with planning and decision making.
The digital tool is currently being utilised in Mennel’s Fostoria, Ohio factory on both their checkweighing and metal detection systems.
“The reliability of these machines and technologies and their ease-of-use, especially when calibrating and testing the inspection equipment, has proven very important to our QA department. More importantly, our customers are specifying higher standards for metal detection to avoid any product contamination,” adds Dieter.
Highlighting the benefits of implementing a fully networked, standardised equipment and technology plan, Dieter concludes: “A high-quality product combined with excellent service has always been the key to any successful operation.”
