Promtek has elevated the operations of a leading baked goods and mixes specialist by enhancing productivity and modernizing its process control systems and production lines. This initiative showcases Promtek’s commitment to driving innovation within the food manufacturing industry.
The UK-based manufacturer, situated in the Midlands, boasts over 100 years of expertise in flagship baked products and ingredients, establishing itself as one of the world’s largest suppliers of bakery solutions. Promtek has served as the company’s primary process control supplier since 1993, successfully completing numerous collaborative projects over the past two decades.
This latest challenge involved optimizing every aspect of the client’s weighing process. The significant hurdle was to implement the necessary upgrades while minimizing downtime and disruption to ongoing production schedules.
Promtek’s StoraWeigh9000 platform not only met but exceeded the customer’s requirements. As a feature-rich process control system, it adeptly handles any bulk material handling process across all major programmable logic controller (PLC) hardware, allowing for seamless mixing.
Furthermore, Promtek’s engineers executed additional enhancements to the production line, including:
- Downscaling the hand addition from six to three bins, which led to reduced piping throughout the factory.
- Upgrading blow lines and replacing them with modern vacuum exhausters controlled by advanced ‘soft start’ motor starters. This change significantly improves energy efficiency and prolongs motor lifespan by minimizing wear during start/stop cycles.
- Conducting a complete rewire to segregate different segments of the system into more defined control panels.
- Installing a state-of-the-art high-definition graphics package and enhancing remote access. This upgrade was crucial for ensuring effective technical support, enabling technicians to work flexibly from home—a significant advantage for companies pursuing modern working environments.
By implementing these lean improvements, the company enhanced its operational efficiency, realized cost savings, and strengthened automation capabilities. The new weighing vessels ensured greater accuracy, while the revamped control panels delivered raw materials more efficiently and consistently. Additionally, reducing the number of bins decreased manual handling and maximized factory floor space—a strategic move that translated into cost savings. The minimized piping also led to lower maintenance costs, and the new vacuum exhausters contributed to energy conservation while safeguarding motor longevity and reliability.
The upgraded software features highly repeatable and configurable multi-speed setpoints, optimizing the transfer speed between raw material silos and auto weighers. This dynamic control system operates at variable speeds to finely tune production and incorporates all essential metrics during manufacturing. Previously, control systems were wired through a single panel, which proved inefficient and time-consuming. However, this upgrade will considerably reduce downtime in the unlikely event of a breakdown, further enhancing operational efficiency.
Charles Williams, Promtek’s managing director, expressed appreciation for the support from the long-standing client.
“We believe wholeheartedly in creating and building on mutually collaborative relationships with our clients,” he stated. “We listen and work together to deliver solutions; we never impose. In this case, we are absolutely delighted to have contributed to a significant uplift in productivity for another loyal customer, and we look forward to seeing them benefit in the coming years.”
