Case Study Pierre Schmidt SAS Stainless steel IPCs provide seamless traceability under difficult hygienic conditions
noax Industrial PC’s in production at Charcuterie Pierre Schmidt SAS
Alsatian tradition and top German technology “You give us the batch number, and within ten minutes, we can tell you the exact origin of the raw materials and give you all other details about the respective product.” Rémi Steiner, Network Administrator at Pierre Schmidt Charcuterie, knows the requirements placed on the food industry. “Our customers want us to be able to provide this information within two hours. As I said, we can do that within ten minutes. And, to a large extent, this is due to the stainless steel IPCs from noax.” “For us, it is an absolute When Steiner talks, he must that the hardware keeps coming back to one withstand cleaning with word: Traçabilité – tracecorrosive disinfectants.” ability. “No one touches a piece of meat here without it being documented. La traçabilité, pour nous elle est essentielle – Traceability, for us it is essential for survival. Even with the very last slice of ham, you determine exactly who did what, when and where.” Right in the incoming goods area, where the animal halves arrive, the employees have to enter the necessary data, check it and compare it with the supplier’s specifications. These include: lot number, slaughtering date, best before date and weight. In addition to a barcode scanner for scanning the labels, an electronic scale is also connected to the noax Industrial PC. The IPC compares the entered data with the order. If everything is correct, an OK appears on the screen and the meat can be passed on to processing. Besides documenting the processing steps, the Industrial PC‘s perform further tasks: they control the weight of the goods, monitor recipes, check individual processes such as curing and much more. The check of incoming goods is only one of many stations at which this large meat factory relies on hardware from Ebersberg. Once the incoming delivery has been checked and entered in the system, the employees carve up the carcass halves.
Once more, the butchers enter the essential data in the stainless steel IPC: weight, meat type, origin, best before date.
Everything under control There are numerous products for which the meat needs to be cured. To do this, pieces of meat are placed in large, closed stainless steel containers that are filled with brine. Osmosis draws out the water from the cells of the meat until the concentration of salt in the cells reaches a similar level to that in the brine. This process has a number of effects: Firstly, it stops the reproduction of microorganisms and makes the meat keep longer. Secondly, the meat obtains a firmer texture, the colour stays rosy and it acquires the typical taste of cured meat. Before and after curing, the pieces are weighed. This provides exact information on how much water the meat has lost and how much salt it contains.
The results are entered in a noax IPC. In addition to that, the butchers at Pierre Schmidt use the stainless steel computers to monitor the composition of the brine. If too much or too little salt is added to the water, the computer alerts the employee immediately so that he or she can correct the quantity. Moreover, the IPC documents the origin of the meat and the processing it undergoes. Steiner: “We always have to enter the same information: weight, meat type, origin, best before date. The batch number on the label enables us to trace every processing step precisely.”
Made-to-measure programming Meat that is made into sausage needs to be seasoned and minced in a cutter. The minced and seasoned meat is the basic material for numerous types of sausage. The last station where the robust computers are used is packaging. Here,
Using the noax IPC, the butcher compares the supplier’s specifi cations with the order
Charcuterie Pierre Schmidt is known all over France for their hearty Alsatian sausage and meat specialities. The meat-processing company uses stainless steel IPCs from noax to not only maintain a consistently high level of quality, but also to comply with EU regulations for food safety and traceability. The devices meet the high hygiene requirements placed on the food industry.
Stainless steel IPCs in production areas: They streamline processes and improve hygienic conditions in meat processing
they provide the information for the labels, trigger label printing and register which shipping company is delivering the goods to which customer. This ensures seamless traceability in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council. The programs for these tasks are provided by the Parisian software developer Vignon Informatique Français (VIF), which specialises in application software for companies in the food industry. The solution they have developed for companies in the meat industry offers a range of services, including order management for raw materials, weighing modules for portioning and packaging, as well as special modules for maturing and storing dried products. As a special service for Pierre Schmidt Charcuterie, VIF adjusted the user interface so that it could be operated with gloves on. Given that the butchers enter a lot of information using the touchscreen, this is a particularly important aspect.
kilogramme. For them, the introduction of computers actually meant there was more money on their pay check. No question - they were happy about the computers.” Since 2007, the butchers at Pierre Schmidt collect production and traceability information using noax IPCs. Before
“Great performance is worth the price”
Electronic components only Before processes were digitised, the employees working in the production areas would write all the specifications down on paper, Steiner tells us while showing us around the factory. “This had many disadvantages compared to digital data entry. Firstly, the people had to stop their work for every order so that they could write all the details down. That of course took up an enormous amount of time. Also, mistakes kept creeping in. Using the terminal for data processing is much more hygienic than using paper lists. Moreover, you can store more detailed information on the goods.” To the question of whether the employees accepted the IPCs quickly, his answer is: “Our people in the meat cutting department are paid by the
because we think that mechanical components carry a higher risk of failure. In addition to that, terminals without hard drives have further advantages: Software or updates only need to be installed on the server once and are then available on all units. That of course saves work, time and, above all, money.”
The IPCs monitor the recipes. Here, they are monitoring the addition of salt
introducing digital data processing, Steiner and his colleagues had a number of different devices delivered to test them on site. Of all Industrial PC‘s, only noax IPCs could satisfy the computer scientist. “The other computers did not seem very robust; so we opted for noax.” The stainless steel units of the Steel Series have been specially designed for the food industry. Normally, these devices are equipped with a processor and a hard drive like any other computer. But Steiner and his colleagues wanted the noax IPCs to run as genuine terminals without hard drives. “We deliberately chose this solution
Concerning the overall concept of the noax IPCs, Steiner has only positive comments to make about the devices from Ebersberg: “Every day, we clean the production areas, including electronic appliances, with highly corrosive disinfectants. Therefore, any hardware we use absolutely has to withstand that. With the noax computers, there have been no problems so far.” All noax computers are designed in accordance with protection class IP65 (NEMA 4). This means they offer full protection against sprayed water, no matter which direction it comes from. Therefore, the stainless steel IPCs from noax are ideally suited to meet the high demands on hygiene “Yes, there are cheaper IPCs in the meat industry. “The on the market. But the cooling system beats that advantages offered by noax of the competing devices terminals are more than by miles”, Steiner explains, worth their money.” “and all in all, the units represent far better workmanship than any of the other computers I have seen.” And then the network administrator adds: “Yes, there may be cheaper IPCs on the market. But when I look at the advantages offered by noax terminals – especially in terms of robustness, ease of repair, durability or service – in relation with their price, it is clear that noax Industrial PC‘s are more than worth the money.”
Charcuterie Pierre Schmidt SAS
Specifications and Application
Overview of Components
Company Profile:
Objectives:
Hardware:
Charcuterie Pierre Schmidt from Weyersheim, near Strasbourg, produces Alsatian meat and sausage specialities that are sold all over France and in neighbouring EU countries. Pierre Schmidt’s range of products includes various kinds of ham, smoked pork chops, a wide variety of spreadable, boiled, and cooked sausages and, of course, tarte flambée. The 350 employees process approximately 30,000 tonnes of meat per year. With a turnover of EUR 78 million, the meat-processing company is among the largest in the industry.
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Streamlining of operating processes
-- Industrial PC Steel S15
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Precise monitoring and documentation of processing steps and suppliers
-- In-house developed noax all-in-one motherboard
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Fulfillment of traceability requirement of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council
-- Input: particularly robust touchscreen
For more information, please visit: www.pierre-schmidt.fr
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More reliability in the monitoring of recipes
-- Bright, high-contrast TFT display -- Protection class IP65 (NEMA 4) -- Completely sealed, no external fan
IPC Requirements:
Software:
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Can be used in production areas with increased hygiene requirements
-- Operating system: AIX
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Daily cleaning of the IPCs with highly corrosive disinfectants
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Protection from splash water, humidity and fats
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Easy, intuitive operation via touch for employees
Easily legible touchscreen displays
Maximum operating stability and availability under extreme conditions
-- Application programs: Industry solutions for the meatprocessing industry, developed by Vignon Informatique Français (www.vif.fr)
© noax Technologies Case Study arranged 2008
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