Case Studies
StreamLine - Intelligent trimming technology for highest priced products
Monitor, Measure and Maximise Yield
StreamLine - Intelligent trimming technology for highest priced products
The market for high priced products, such as PAD (Pret a decoupé) or ready to slice products has seen continued growth over the past few years in countries such as Holland, Italy, France, UK and Ireland. Customer demands are constantly changing and the need for customized processing machinery is increasing. UK and Ireland based companies are lowering their production costs by adopting new technologies and, as a result, increasing exports.
Continuous innovation
Marel Food Systems has recently introduced StreamLine, a new trimming technology to meet the changing demands of the market. The technology comes in the form of a trimming line and is specifically designed to monitor the various stages that the product goes through during processing such as: trimming, membrane skinning and touch up.
Linden produces high quality retail products for UK and Ireland Supermarkets. The company currently processes over 1,400 cattle and 2,500 lambs per week and debone up to 500 tonnes per week. They recently took steps to not only maximise selection of cuts into highest price products but also minimise red meat loss, by installing a state-of-the-art Marel intelligent trimming system.
Fits well with Lean Manufacturing
"Lean Manufacturing is a philosophy that Linden Foods have adopted and are keen to implement at any opportunity within its manufacturing process," explains Rupert West, Group IT manager for Linden Foods. "Lean is focused on getting the right things, to the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity to achieve perfect work flow while minimising waste and maintaining flexibility. I feel that the StreamLine from Marel will be able to deliver that."
Performance monitoring & line setup
StreamLine is designed to meet customer requirements for a reliable, flexible and easily configured system that can deliver boning hall managers with full real-time performance information down to each individual operator on the line e.g. untrimmed primal that requires splitting, trimming, membrane skinning, touch up and finally packing is monitored through each step of the process collecting information on process time and yield change. The unique functionality of the system is controlled by Marel Food Systems’ Innova software.
Mr. Rupert West, Group IT manager at Linden stresses the importance of monitoring within the food processing industry and explains, “What’s not measured is not managed, and by implementing Marel Food Systems’ line we believe we can measure each process in our production.”
Improved bottom line
Linden Foods can expect to see an improvement in yield of 5 to 8%. The effect of measuring the individual operators of this high value product is one of the main reasons for the impact on the bottom line along with the improved logistical setup of highest price product processing.