AMF Bakery Systems: Future-smart technology arrives

Future-smart technology arrives

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+One demand that has not changed in large-scale manufacturing is the need for production efficiency while maintaining the best possible product quality.

Higher volumes made faster and safer are increasingly being requested, with processes aimed at minimizing waste and optimizing energy use. This requires technology that traditionally covers manual tasks to gain speed, accuracy and consistency in the various process steps. In addition, there are growing sustainability needs to be met, as bakers recognize their entire production process needs to be green and tools that will help them reach this goal must be prioritized.

Requests shape solutions

Solutions are, in their specific applications, as diverse as a baker’s (present and future) product portfolio. As our customers work to grow their businesses, enhance existing products or create new ones, they also want to be sustainable and implement digitalization at the same time, as frequent requests show. As a professional partner for bakeries and food producers, AMF has comprehensive knowledge of customers’ business drivers, which helps us offer products and solutions that best fit their unique strategies. Automation in bakery and food manufacturing, in general, is at the core of business growth. And this is what we do best, the support we provide – it’s what we have always done. M

Recent requests for sustainable and digital solutions led us to develop and introduce smart K solutions. In the Bakery Intelligence range of solutions, we are currently introducing the Smart Cheese Applicator, for example, which is cloudbased software that uses artificial intelligence to automate quality control for pizza toppings and ensure consistent application, while minimizing (often expensive) ingredient waste. It greatly improves the application/strewing process, which is more accurate and efficient as it minimizes

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AMF Bakery Systems (Sales)

Phone: ++31 183 626 252 E-mail: sales@amfbakery.com

AMF Bakery Systems (Service & Parts)

Phone: ++31 183 626 252 E-mail: service@amfbakery.com

waste and giveaway, as well as quality control with every single product being weighed and digitally M inspected. By doing so, the applicator indirectly helps save the energy behind producing and then eliminating ingredients that are now used to the fullest – and contributes towards sustainability goals. The Applicator can help save up to 3% of otherwise wasted ingredients, meaning up to several hundred thousand euros per year, in some cases. Another new launch that meets both types of needs is our latest Smart Oven control app, which provides tools to control energy-saving, monitor tunnel ovens in real-time, and optimize all oven processes for bakeries. The app helps to control the oven’s temperature in real-time and contributes to its overall operating sustainability as it ensures optimal use of energy and helps to minimize energy loss. When a tunnel oven is not optimally loaded, for instance, it is needlessly using too much energy. To help prevent this, the app uses warning systems and a self-learning mechanism. We are developing an entire family of digital tools and bakery intelligence solutions which will soon join the Smart Applicator, to step into the smart factory era. More tools, features and solutions that are going to be part of our Smart Suite of products will help manage equipment fatigue and handle the wearing out of parts, engines, motors, as well as predictive maintenance, to ensure our customers can run their lines 24/7 without problems or worries. The automation of bakery processes and food production, plus digitalization, will help AMF’s customers do preventive maintenance, which results in less downtime, minimizing serious issues or malfunctions and thus increases the efficiency of your production flow. AMF Tromp is also working on hygienic improvements such as the NANO technology to be able to use less water in cleaning and energy saving solutions. Our lines are already designed in such a way that cleaning can be done quickly and efficiently without tooling, with this being improved even more. Moreover, such solutions contribute greatly to

C ensuring food safety and sustainablility. This has been of particular interest in light of increased

Y CM concerns post-COVID-19, and therefore improveMY ments in product safety will continue to be a CY CMY priority. Digital tools such as real-time quality

K checks performed with the AMF Tromp Smart

Applicator measure and image each product in production, checking for weight, specifications, ingredients and quality. This means that no product passes through human hands anymore and nothing needs to be touched. Line managers and operators can review images so they can learn and see, but machines should be able to steer the process themselves.

Fully integrated lines and lifetime support for every baked good. We know your bakery system needs flexibility as your operations grow and accessible support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. At AMF, we’re bakers too; we design solutions with this master baker mindset, like our modular AMF Den Boer Tunnel Ovens, which allow us to engineer the most optimal baking solutions for today while preparing your bakery for future growth. Get in touch with the industry’s only truly global complete system supplier for the best unit equipment and integrated solutions for your operation.

About AMF Bakery Systems

AMF Bakery Systems is a world leader in bakery automation solutions supplying state-of-the-art TROMPGROUP.NL | sales@amfbakery.com USA | Netherlands | UK | China | Singapore | Canada | Mexico | UAE commercial equipment for an ever-changing market. AMF’s systems set the standard in the baking industry providing complete solutions for soft bread, buns and rolls, tortillas and English muffins, artisan breads, pizzas and flatbreads, cakes and pies, and pastries and croissants. Along with the latest bakery innovation, AMF provides expert design and applications engineering, production expertise, full-system integration, project management, installation, training and lifetime parts and service support. AMF Tromp – technically leading unit equipment as well as fully integrated bakery lines for the worldwide baking industry. It specializes in sheeting, laminating, make-up, decorating, depositing, injecting, spraying, glazing, seeding, and many more. AMF Den Boer – a leading brand, with over 100 years of experience in tunnel ovens, proofing systems and handling systems. It provides modular systems for every kind of baking requirement, with sustainable solutions like Hydrogen (Ready), Electric and Hybrid ovens with all turnkey solutions delivered anywhere in the world. Together, AMF, AMF Tromp, and AMF Den Boer help bakers grow their product portfolio with confidence to produce soft bread and buns, sheeted artisan breads, pizzas and flatbreads, cakes and pies, and pastries and croissants.

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Process improvements shape the future: ‘lights-out’ bakery

While certain baking processes have traditionally been related to manual labor and craft, there are immediate benefits to streamlining them. Technology comes in to simplify operations and ensure consistency, especially where many people are assigned. The most opportunities where production stands to benefit from employing automation tools are in the process steps involving several operators and where quality control is concerned. This can be anywhere along the production line, or over the complete production facility.

AMF Connect is a tool we have been offering for some years, where the complete production line is under control and managed by factory managers via one platform for the line. This enables bakers to have control over the processes and OEE data. But more can be achieved, and more opportunities are becoming available, as we are now entering an age where machines become smart and have self-learning abilities. For instance, the Smart Applicator is learning to create the perfect setting for Cheese strewing. With these new tools, it is possible to have quality control carried out in real-time, continuously, whereas an operator would perform quality checks at various intervals, and sometimes with varying results, for instance.

Our dot on the horizon is the ‘lights out’ bakery, where machines run autonomously without operator intervention. They will be self-sufficient smart to solve issues by themselves; however, we are not there yet. In most bakeries, the operator is still in control of the machine and process. We are not taking steps out of that process, but instead digitalizing them, using data and creating value. The first- and second-line services are available remotely. Through the platform, operators can monitor and input actions to support where needed. This is the role of specialized staff, who can solve problems the machine cannot handle by itself, yet. While machines are not entirely able to run processes without any intervention yet, they will be able to do more in the near future.

Smart becomes smarter

IoT supports the integration of these tools/services into your processing lines, as devices are connected to the platforms we offer and host, through PLC and Internet connections. Individual units and machines use Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning features to process data, become Smart and then use that data to create value.

The AMF family of digital solutions

Smart Applicator

This is an intelligent quality and weight control tool, for which AMF Tromp uses real-time digital imaging, with an algorithm that checks every pizza or product on the line. The cloud-based software uses Artificial Intelligence to automate quality control for pizza toppings. It immediately changes the speed, amount and placement of the cheese, to optimize the result. Machine Learning makes sure the algorithm and the Applicator get smarter over time. It can even be incorporated to non-AMF Tromp units!

Smart Oven app

This software has the benefit of using real-time oven data, to generate important information regarding energy use and energy consumption. It can also predict failure and maintenance needs, propose process corrections while baking, detect parameters that are outside of preset specifications, and optimizes the oven’s overall performance. It uses not only the data measured by local sensors to do so, but also statistics from other ovens worldwide (protected data). In this way, the Smart Oven app not only contributes to individual sustainability goals and records progress, but also effectively builds an up-to-date roadmap of bakeries worldwide, opening the door to entirely new possibilities and benefits.

AMFConnect™

This is a single system that provides critical information and control of multiple processes throughout your bakery. Connecting bakery equipment, baking systems, and bakery processes, AMFConnect™ consolidates data to improve communication and the coordination of plant operations. With secure, reliable, and accurate data collection from an entire production line, this tool gives you insights and better control of upstream and downstream operations. The entire bakery’s data is available across multiple platforms with operator stations in your facility and remote access via smart devices.

The Smart Applicator, the AMF Connect and the Smart Oven control app will always be installed to the specifications of each facility. Customizations are made 100% of the time, because the unique data of your specific line is used to optimize the process and results. Of course, the hardware is standard, but the intelligence of it all is the data we use to create value. To get the best results and make use of the data build-up over time, a connection to our cloudbased platform is needed. This is done according to market standards, using powerful platforms such as Microsoft Azure. We can guarantee the safety of the data, privacy and even benchmarking of machine data worldwide, without sharing any sensitive information. In this way, Smart Solutions become smarter over time and lift the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and the quality of the products, respectively. Learning events include deviations from preset parameters, for which built-in responses are also in place to be automatically deployed and quickly bring the process within standard configurations. Typical malfunctions we see in the pizza industry, for example, is when pizzas have too much or too little cheese deposited on each piece. Weighing checks, when manually done by operators, will only inspect a few pieces every 15 minutes, on average. We automated that process and check every product as of now, with the Smart Applicator. It detects every single anomaly, and the system and algorithms will immediately change settings, to go back to the ‘base’ value. This not only applies to the weight of the product but also the distribution of the toppings on each product.

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Also, when looking at improving baking efficiency, it is the oven that determines the quality of the baked goods. Real-time monitoring of baking temperatures in tunnel ovens makes the process better and thus the end product better – a task for which the Smart Oven app has been developed. Smart and smarter solutions do not only make a manufacturing facility more effective but will also bring added value when operating several production sites. This is where the use of data makes the difference, connecting all units/devices or lines on the cloud platform, to pool together and share data, to really help smart solutions become smarter. Slight mistakes, faults, errors or often recurring problems will be shared and the machines will all learn from it to optimize their performance. The big picture will have synchronization being done over multiple facilities, even internationally. +++ Fully integrated lines and lifetime support for every baked good. We know your bakery system needs flexibility as your operations grow and accessible support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. At AMF, we’re bakers too; we design solutions with this master baker mindset, like our modular AMF Den Boer Tunnel Ovens, which allow us to engineer the most optimal baking solutions for today while preparing your bakery for future growth.

Get in touch with the industry’s only truly global complete system supplier for the best unit equipment and integrated solutions for your operation.

© AMF Bakery Systems

The Multibake® HT Tunnel Oven (Den Boer) is a high temperature oven for pre-baked products like pizza, flatbreads, naan

TROMPGROUP.NL | sales@amfbakery.com

USA | Netherlands | UK | China | Singapore | Canada | Mexico | UAE

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