Case Study: Loss-in-Weight Feeder and Model MWF-OS-24 Open Construction Sanitary Weigh Belt

Customer: WEETABIX
From its headquarters in the heart of the English countryside, the Weetabix Food Company has been creating delicious breakfast cereals since 1932 and now employs over 2,000 people around the world. Weetabix is the leading cereal manufacturer in the U.K., offering a wide range of top-selling brands, including Weetabix and Alpen. Weetabix exports cereal to over 80 countries worldwide. In 2004 Latimer Group Limited, a company incorporated by Lion Capital, acquired all of the issued share capital of Weetabix Limited.

Requirement:
WEETABIX received a private packaging contract for manufacturing a new cereal for a major cereal supplier. The materials to be fed are extruded bran flakes and roasted sliced almonds. A requirement by the customer is to use as much of their existing material conveying and packaging line as possible which posed a big problem in that there was not enough room to squeeze in two feeders, one for the bran the other for the almonds, plus a blender.

Solution:
Thayer’s engineering department came up with the new “CASCADE BLENDER” that is a unique combination of a Thayer Loss-In-Weight Cable Scale with an electromagnetic vibratory feeder metering the almonds and Thayer’s Model MWF-OS-24 open construction sanitary weigh belt for monitoring the bran flow. Both feeders are mounted on a common portable stand along with instrumentation. The discharge of the almonds is situated above the discharge of the weigh belt so that the two materials are blended as they cascade into the takeaway conveyor going to the packaging line.

The control scheme uses the S52i Integrator on the MWF-OS-24 Weigh Belt and a Series 5200 on the Loss-In-Weight Feeder tied together in a Master/Slave configuration.

Back to Case Studies | Click For Printable Page | Please contact us for more details

Free materials testing is available.