Ishida weighing head boosts Gruninger production

Wholesale butcher Eugen Gruninger Grossmetzgerei has implemented a second Ishida multihead weigher at its plant in Freiburg/Breisgau.

The company has installed a new 14-head from the Ishida R-series, offering even greater speed and accuracy thanks to substantial changes to its central processing unit and software.

Since the arrival of its first Ishida weigher six years ago, Gruninger has expanded rapidly, requiring round the clock working and putting pressure on production and packing facilities.

With the new Ishida weigher, Gruninger has now been able to expand its manufacturing capability by introducing new production schedules.

The new weigher operates from 5am to 11pm every day, and the existing weigher has reduced its period of operation by eight hours to the same schedule.

Despite these reductions, total production of Wurstsalat has been boosted to 12.5 tonnes per day.

It was partly the non-stop performance of the company's existing Ishida weigher that led general manager Michael Gruninger and production manager Peter Egloff to consult Ishida when new equipment was required.

The speed and accuracy of the R-Series 14-head weigher placed it well ahead of equivalent competitor ranges.

Gruninger said: 'With products that have to be produced in large quantities and with a consistent level of quality, it is important to have the latest equipment available'.

Packing speed is paramount because of the importance of freshness in this type of product.

It also has a sticky consistency, but despite this, the new weigher achieves more than 30 weighs per minute, assisted by its highly advanced vibratory-feed system.

The salad spends only two minutes in contact with the ambient air between slicing and packing.

Egloff said: 'In fact, the weigher has an even higher potential.

'It is currently held back by the speed of the packing machine'.

The user-interface of the new Ishida is so simple to learn and easy to use that it takes just three operators to run both Wurstsalat packing lines.

The Gruninger Wurstsalat range consists of six variants, each of which is packed in transparent trays (300, 400 and 1kg).

Changeovers are quick: where pack size only is changed, they are even faster, thanks to the colour touchscreen.

Another advantage of choosing Ishida was the quick installation provided.

As a sizeable international company with large retailer and wholesale customers to service, Gruninger could not have afforded production downtime as the new machine came on line, particularly with a seasonal product like Wurstsalat.

The impending bottleneck in production was identified and three months later the new machine was up and running.

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