IP CO
Getting the best from your
steel bake oven belt IPCO is the world’s largest supplier of steel bake oven belts and has nearly 100 years’ experience of working with the bakery industry. This gives the company an understanding of production issues that goes beyond belts themselves, as IPCO global product manager Marko Leber explains.
T
IPCO Global Product Manager: Marko Leber
he primary role of an IPCO steel bake oven belt is to convey goods through a continuously operating oven. The high
thermal conductivity of this type of belt, whether solid or perforated, concentrates heat onto the product to achieve the desired crisp base, and the smooth, flat surface ensures a clean discharge at the end of the line with minimal risk of damage to fragile products. A high-quality bake oven belt will have key mechanical properties – flatness, straightness – ‘engineered in’ at the production stage to ensure that it runs through the oven as it should. Consistency of colour is important too; dark areas absorb heat
the productivity, quality and profitability of the
while light, shiny areas reflect it, so uneven belt
overall bake oven line.
colour could result in an uneven bake. This has to be engineered into the belt too. In short, the quality of the manufacturing
A steel belt that has been manufactured to the highest standards is an highly efficient tool, one that with the right maintenance will
process – the transformation of a length of
deliver reliable service for longer than any other
cold rolled carbon steel band into a high
conveying medium; a belt life of 20 or more
precision component – determines the long-
years is not unusual, some can last two or even
term reliability of a bake oven belt and, in turn,
three times that long.
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