A three-year collaboration between academia and industry to develop a vision-based automated inspection system for commercial bakeries is reaching the front burner.
HAMBURGER BUNS ARE BIG BUSINESS IN COMMERCIAL bakeries, and maintaining consistency on a high-speed line is a challenge. Customers like McDonald's and Burger King are demanding buns with evenly distributed sesame seeds and uniform color, size and texture; suppliers who fail to meet tighter tolerances are in danger of losing the business. That reality is fueling demand for an in-line quality assurance system to flag out-of-spec product and either suggest or automatically make adjustments.
While a commercial at-line vision system exists, engineers at Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) began work in 2001 on an in-line unit to provide real-time feedback on quality dimensions. To develop such a unit, GTRI forged a partnership with Bake-Tech, Tucker, Ga., and Flowers Bakery, with support from Thinkage for conveying equipment and Rockwell Automation for PLC controls. To advance the inspection science, the team set out to devise a system incorporating machine vision, logarithmic computations and intelligent controls that could communicate with ovens, proofers, depositors and other upstream equipment when product began to drift out of spec. Fabrication by Bake-Tech of a commercial prototype, that features sanitary design, is washdown ready and is sufficiently rugged to withstand an industrial environment is underway. Installation is scheduled this month in Flowers Bakery's Villa Rica, Ga., plant.