Case Studies

• Traceability to individual carcasses and farmers
• Computer controlled raw material flow
• No trays or boxes
• Monitoring of individual operators
• Greater productivity and higher yield

Technological innovation is progress in motion, and Marel's newly released Meat Deboning Flowline is a superb example of integrating new technologies into the meat processing industry.
Two of the most important facets of the new meat flowline are 100% traceability and real-time production supervision using Marel's MPS software. This technology allows total control over production, quality and yield, while plant managers also have a real-time overview of each individual carcass going through the plant, enabling traceability back to the farm on the one hand, and back to each worker on the other.

100% automatic traceability from breeder to buyer
Marel's meat flowline is the only system in the world with 100% automatic individual traceability, without the use of trays or boxes. The system not only traces back to each individual carcass, but also back to the farm.

The Marel flowline – basic concept
A carcass arrives at the slaughter plant with an ID-tag that remains with it throughout the slaughtering process. When a beef fore- or hindquarter enters the flowline, the ID tag from the slaughter line is scanned and the quarter weighed and assigned to a deboning station.
When the fore- or hindquarter arrives at the deboning station, it has been assigned a supervisor-defined cutting pattern based on the category of animal. After deboning a quarter, the deboner slides the meat to the trimmer workstation where the trimmer cuts the individual product item based on the cutting pattern. The deboner and trimmer work opposite each other as a team, one team per station.

The cutting pattern is displayed on the RT220 terminal, leading each trimmer through the individual product items to be cut in a pre-programmed way.After cutting each product item, the trimmer places it in a computer controlled buffer, and confirms it on his terminal. The release of the item in the product buffer is controlled by the MPS software and a computer control system.

The primals in the product buffers are released, one by one, from the workstations onto a belt, without the use of trays or boxes. The beef is then transported in a continuous flow over a Marel flow scale. The scale assigns the weight of the item to the product, as well as the station of origin. This allows individual worker statistics to be collected – worker name, speed, quality, utilization, product types, and working time.

Trimming is released from trim buffers in batches, which go over the same product flow scale. Fat is released onto a separate belt and weighed in a hopper scale. The MPS software performs random quality-assurance sampling, which monitors defects, and stations with a higher occurrence of defects have their sampling frequency automatically increased. Product type and weight parameters are registered, and this data is used to automatically pull the items to the appropriate processing destination with pneumatic gate arms. The processing can be: portioning, packing, membrane skinning, etc.

As each product item arrives at the appropriate packing station, an individual label is printed with all necessary data, including carcass ID number for 100% traceability, weight, product name, and last sales day. The label is then inserted into the vacuum bag or other packaging for future reference. Packing stations can be easily customised for individual packing specifications; for instance, all meat from an individual carcass can be packed together to ensure full traceability from breeder to buyer.

CARNI LIBERATOR
The Marel flowline concept can be used in conjunction with the Carni Liberator, a mechanically assisted deboning system. This allows the full accountability of each individual trimmer, as each trimmer will work on a boned quarter.

INCENTIVE SYSTEM
The highest performance from the flowline installation can be achieved if an incentive is paid to the operators based on throughput, yield and quality. All the data for that purpose is gathered by the MPS software.