Automating Placement of Crumbly Sponges in Pots

  • Thread starter wolram
  • Start date
In summary, the speaker is discussing the challenges of automating the placement of circular sponges into pots containing two viscous substances, cream and jam. The sponges are baked and not very symmetrical, making it difficult for an operator to manually place them level in the pot. The speaker has already rejected the idea of automation unless a substantial budget is allocated, and has tested three unsuccessful inventions from the original machine manufacturer. They are seeking thoughts on the practical side of automating this process, but there are concerns about the fragility of the sponges and the potential for them to stick together. Suggestions such as using a vacuum to retrieve and place the sponges and freezing them to make them easier to handle are discussed.
  • #1
wolram
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I am no fan of doing away with human labour, but needs must, an (opperator) has to place a circular sponge into a pot that has all ready
had two very viscuous substances, automatically depossited into it, the sponge has to be placed level in the pot, which could mean that the (opperator) has to push it down on one side or the other, if one considers
that theese sponges are baked and not very symetrical and are crumbly by
nature, could anyone come up with some automation that will replace the
opperator, i have all ready said no, unless a very substancial budget is
assigned the project, we have all ready trialed three inventions by the origonal machine manufacturer with very poor results,
I do not want you to invent any thing, just give your thoughts on the
praticle side.
 
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  • #2
The two viscous substances, let's call them cream and jam. Are they already mixed? Are they in layers?

What would happen if you just pushed down on the whole sponge with a big plate, surely this would cause the sponge to self-level?

Obviously pretty simple, I'm just trying to work out what I've missed.
 
  • #3
Sorry; I lost track of this thread before I had a chance to respond. It seems like a reasonably simple task, so there must indeed be some information missing that complicates it. What sort of scale are we dealing with here? Cooking pot size, or huge industrial cauldron or what?
 
  • #4
The sponges are about 2 inches dia, and come in cellophane tubes, 50 per
tube, problem 1 is they tend to stick to gether, problem 2 is they are not a
regular shape just roundish, problem 3 is that any mechanism has to fit within the confines of the machine which means some sort of vertical magazine, which has to hold at least 5mins worth of production @ 300 min
the sponges are about 3/16 to 1/4 thick and can be slightly concave or convex.
the machine is 4 foot across and has 4 (lanes), the pots have jelly first then
custard then sponge then cream, the biggest problem is the fragillity of
the sponges, if they are held in vertical mag 25 is about the max befor what
ever machanism starts chewing them up.
there is 8ft head room over machine and 6ft of track free for this opperation.
some sort of overhead feed conveyor is an opption, but one opperator has to feed the machine with pots, lids and sponges. :smile:
 
  • #5
I see sponge separation as a critical problem if they are "stuck together" and "fragile/crumbly". Perhaps one could use a gentle air jet, but recognizing the boundary is the key.

Various industries use circular systems, e.g. bottling industry to fill and cap bottles, and the pharmaceutical and nuclear fuel industries use rotary presses to press tablets and pellets respectively.

Cassets could be used to contain the sponges, but still reliable separation and insertion remain key. Perhaps a head with a gentle vacuum can be used to retrieve the sponge (in conjunction with gentle air jet blowing on the interface between sponges for separation) and hold it in place while inserting it, and the gently 'blow' the sponge into the container.

God, I can't think of anything more tedious than separating sponges and placing them in small containers just so! Well, may be I could, but why torture myself? :biggrin:
 
  • #6
The worst job in the factory is spoting, some one has to stand and look for any defects, befor they go on to metal detector, check weigher, i did it for half an hour and nearly fell over when i looked up. the opperators do this in
4 hr stints :cry:
 
  • #7
In-process QC - it's excruciatingly tedious and as you said, spotting is so un-natural - standing there, head down, staring at moving things while not moving. :yuck:
 
  • #8
Astro, we trialed air jets for seperating sponges, eventually building up to an (air knife), all i can say is crumbs :smile: the way the opperators seperate
them is by a twist, this seems to cause the least damage, but even with
the best opperators there is 3% average wastage due to broken sponges.
I did suggest they cut the sponges out a baked sheet for symetry and dust
them with an anti stick agent, but i was given a million reasons why this is
not practical ? i did hear that a mark 4 is on the drawing board, i bet a pound to a penny it will end up in the, it may be useful pile.:smile:
 
  • #9
I didn't realize that you were talking about sponge cakes. That does make a difference. What would the odds be that you can freeze them, cut them apart, and then thaw them again?
 
  • #10
Danger said:
I didn't realize that you were talking about sponge cakes. That does make a difference. What would the odds be that you can freeze them, cut them apart, and then thaw them again?
Hi Danger.
The big problem with that is keeping them frozen, we have to do this with fruit we have a freezer near by that gets down to minus 40 but in practise
with constant door opening it is minus 20, the room is kept at 10c, this gives us about 30 mins handling time befror they start to thaw out, when the opperators go for a half hour break the fruit can go back in the freezer as it is kept in trays, i am not sure how we could do that with sponges, and what
sort of problems we would have if they did start to thaw out.
 
  • #11
In that case, what about getting the blokes who make the sponges to insert wax paper or similar between them before stacking them up? That's how frozen hamburger patties are done here, and it works well.
 
  • #12
Danger said:
In that case, what about getting the blokes who make the sponges to insert wax paper or similar between them before stacking them up? That's how frozen hamburger patties are done here, and it works well.

That is a good idea, although i have no idea how they package these things,
i will ask questions, in the mean time have you worked out how to get them in pots :smile:
 
  • #13
Sorry Wolram, I haven't had a lot of time to reply to this.

If I read the thread there appears to be a few "issues" at hand:

- Cutting the sponge cakes
- Placing the sponge cakes
- Making sure they are even

Is that the gist?

The first thing I think of when cutting like this is a heated element like a wire cheese slicer. I am trying to think if the heat would buy you any advantage in keeping the cake from crumbling...

The next thing I was throwing around was a vacuum that could pick up the cake and place it. As long as the vacuum is distributed over the entire surface, Id on't think you'd have breakage issues. The part that holds the cake could put a very slight pressure down on the cake once it's in place and releases the vacuum and that way it should be leveled the same way every time.
 
  • #14
Hi Fred, the biggest problem, (i think) is presenting a single sponge to what
ever deposits it, we need to store about 400 per lane to give a minimum
of 5 mins opperation per load, and an opperator has to be able to quickly refill the storage, this one opperator has to keep the machine fed with pots lids and sponges, then there is size restrictions, 4ft width, 6ft length 8 ft
hight.
 
  • #15
I don't suppose that they'd alter the sponge recipe to make them less crumbly... :rolleyes:
Something is just coming to mind as I'm typing, so you're getting it at the same time that I am. If these cakes could be batch loaded (one cellophane tube at a time, on top of each other, with the cellophane removed) into an ever-so-slightly too-small tube (big enough for a stack, then tapered down), a piston of some sort could force them through into the path of a rotating slicer. The compression from the tube might prevent crumbling, at least on the leading edge of the one still inside. With small enough clearance (say maybe 1/2 mm) between the blade and the pot, the cake will be automatically levelled when cut. I think... hmmm...

Any chance of you posting a wee diagram or something so we know how the various components are related, and how the pots move along?
 
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  • #16
You're not at the Kipling factory are you, perchance?
 
  • #17
The problem that I hear is that you ask for two incompatible results: Cheap and automation. For example, there are vision systems for defect detection but it gets expensive. Frito looks at every single potato chip on a three foot wide conveyor moving at about ten feet a second. If a defect is detected, that particular chip is recycled and checked again. The position of that single chip is tracked and it is rejected after a second pass. So there are always solutions, for a price.
 
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  • #18
Ivan Seeking said:
The problem that I hear is that you ask for two incompatible results: Cheap and automation. For example, there are vision systems for defect detection but it gets expensive. Frito looks at every single potato chip on a three foot wide conveyor moving at about ten feet a second. If a defect is detected, that particular chip is recycled and checked again. The position of that single chip is tracked and it is rejected after a second pass. So there are always solutions, for a price.

You are right Ivan, i have all ready told the powers that be that (their) idea will not be cheap, will take a lot of development, and may be they will not
recover the cost vs two minimum wage opperators for years, this is why i am
asking the oppinions of some clever people, gather some ideas and then work
out some ball park numbers that they can chew on in their endless meetings.
 
  • #19
Question...do they bake the cakes in individual sizes and then package them in the big tube, or it the cake one large cake that is cut?
 
  • #20
It seems to me that you need a constant vacuum sucking the cakes out of the cylinder and that the circumference of the cylinder should vary slightly - this changes the amount of friction holding the cakes in the cylinder. The natural vibration of the machine should weaken the bonds between the individual cakes - and hopefully not weaken the bonds within the individual cakes.

Edit: Getting a vacuum and a cylinder of varying circumference probably makes the solution too expensive. An open cylinder that's held closed by an electromagnet would probably work better. The current's turned off for a short time when a can passes a switch, allowing the cakes to fall by gravity. The reclosing of the cylinder grabs the next cake in line, and the momentum of the cake, along with the vibration of the cylinder, will hopefully break the bonds between the cakes.

wolram said:
The worst job in the factory is spoting, some one has to stand and look for any defects, befor they go on to metal detector, check weigher, i did it for half an hour and nearly fell over when i looked up. the opperators do this in
4 hr stints :cry:
Tell me about it. One of the minimum wage jobs I had in my younger days was to stand over cans of methanol, peering into them to see if they were filled to the right level and hoping a can didn't misfeed in the capper, resulting in a spray of methanol jetting out of the can I was peering into (the cheap shop safety glasses supposedly protected your eyes, but... ).

Eventually it dawned on me that I could listen to the cans instead of peering into them. They rattled as they moved down the conveyor and, with a little practice, the low notes of the deficient cans was so obvious that you could pick a single 'low' can out of the chain before you even had to visually check it.

It always bothered a few of the foremen that I would stand there with my eyes closed, but they found it hard to argue with results.
 
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  • #21
FredGarvin said:
Question...do they bake the cakes in individual sizes and then package them in the big tube, or it the cake one large cake that is cut?
Fred, they come individually, packed in tubes of 50.
 
  • #22
Long time no read, Woolie. How's it going with this thing?
 
  • #23
Danger said:
Long time no read, Woolie. How's it going with this thing?

Another company has submited some drawings, i have had a look, and told my boss what i think. the mechanism is a simple shutle with a hole for the
sponge to drop into, so it takes one from the stack moves it over the pot
then two (gates) open and drop it into the pot :rofl: :rofl: the thing has just
got crazy, for one thing they will need two opperators to keep the B thing
full and they will have pots full of crumbs, the company want 30,000 to
make this thing, money that will have to be paid if it works or not, and the
opperators only get 4- 50 an hour.
 
  • #24
I think that if they could make the cakes as a continuous piece (a big cylinder of pound cake) you could have apiston eject out the right amount and have a wire cut off the required thickness. I think that would hold off on the crumbs. I wish I was in the position to try my theory.
 
  • #25
wolram said:
the company want 30,000 to
make this thing
Bloody hell! I'll fly over there and build one myself for half that.
 
  • #26
FredGarvin said:
I think that if they could make the cakes as a continuous piece (a big cylinder of pound cake) you could have apiston eject out the right amount and have a wire cut off the required thickness. I think that would hold off on the crumbs. I wish I was in the position to try my theory.

Years ago i had a job devolping prototype packaging machinery, we built
machines to pack every thing from batteries to tampons, our worst failure
was the battery machine, one of guys discovered the samples were magnetic
so a simple electro magnetic turn over platform was designed to put them in
the box, when the machine was installed at the factory it just threw batteries every where, the battery material had been changed and was no longer magnetic. the tampon machine was another story.
 
  • #27
That's awesome. There's a commercial on TV here for Fed Ex or someone like that, that shows a golf ball factory having the same problem. Of course, if I were on the floor, I wouldn't be laughing.
 
  • #28
wolram said:
Fred, they come individually, packed in tubes of 50.
I see this is a somewhat old thread, but reading it has me too amused to stay quiet. I don't suppose you make the cakes on site if they're coming packed in tubes? If so, it seems you "just" (I know it's never that simple) need to move the pots of jelly and whatnot closer to the oven so they can be dropped in before they all get stuck together and crumbly after they've been cooked and cooled. (If that actually turns out to be feasible, which I don't expect, can I have the 30,000 they were going to pay those other folks for ideas? I'd even be generous and split it with you. :biggrin:)
 
  • #29
Moonbear said:
I see this is a somewhat old thread, but reading it has me too amused to stay quiet. I don't suppose you make the cakes on site if they're coming packed in tubes? If so, it seems you "just" (I know it's never that simple) need to move the pots of jelly and whatnot closer to the oven so they can be dropped in before they all get stuck together and crumbly after they've been cooked and cooled. (If that actually turns out to be feasible, which I don't expect, can I have the 30,000 they were going to pay those other folks for ideas? I'd even be generous and split it with you. :biggrin:)

The sponges are made elsewhere MoonB and the room has to be kept at 6c
so putting an oven in there would make temperature control a little difficult
:smile: but keep thinking.
 
  • #30
One thing to keep in mind when trying to help Wolly, is that they seem to be making a product which is being consumed by the general public. If you go changing the consistency of the sponges, someone may notice. That is unless the change is accompanied by a massive ad campaign... IE NEW IMPROVED! Ask Coke how such things work.

I am amazed that a single operator can keep up with the rates you are talking about! In my experience 30K L (~$60K) for anything which needs engineering and fabrication is cheap. I am surprised that there is not another zero. We recently but out a bid for a tool to measure our processed wafers, it needs to pick a wafer out of a boat, place it on a stage and inspect it with a microscope. The bids ranged from ~$500k to $1.2M. Of course the American Hi Tech companys pay a premium for everything, simply because they will pay.
 
  • #31
Itegral, this is a cut throat industry, often times we will buy a machine at a
bargain price, the manufacturer thinking they will make money on spare parts, their mark up is as high as 400%, but we simply draw up the parts and get them made locally, an example is a heat seal face, they charge 80 pounds for one, we get them made in batches of 10 for 200 pounds.
You are right about changing the product, if we do it takes weeks of trials
and the customer is involved in every stage, often rejecting the first, second attempt, one change took six attempts before every one was happy.
 

1. What is the purpose of automating the placement of crumbly sponges in pots?

The purpose of automating this process is to increase efficiency and accuracy in the placement of crumbly sponges in pots. This can save time and resources for researchers or companies that use crumbly sponges in their experiments or production processes.

2. How does the automation process work?

The automation process involves using robotics and computer programming to manipulate and place the crumbly sponges in pots. This can be done through a pre-programmed system or through real-time control by a scientist.

3. What are the benefits of automating this process?

The benefits of automating the placement of crumbly sponges in pots include increased efficiency, reduced human error, and the ability to handle larger quantities of sponges at once. It also frees up scientists' time to focus on other tasks.

4. Are there any potential drawbacks to automating this process?

One potential drawback is the initial cost of implementing the automation system. It may also require regular maintenance and updates. Additionally, there may be a learning curve for scientists who are not familiar with the technology.

5. Can this automation process be applied to other tasks in the scientific field?

Yes, the same technology and principles used to automate the placement of crumbly sponges in pots can be applied to other tasks in the scientific field. This includes tasks such as sorting, measuring, and handling various materials in a laboratory setting.

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