Solution Overview
Need to control your mushroom giveaway and get full traceability back to the piece?
The Symphony™: Pack- off Manager is a net weight management solution from Carlisle that allows you to closely monitor and manage the net weight of trays before they are packed into cartons. Plus, it records all the information you need for traceability purposes.
Key Benefits
- Better weight control (tighter tolerances, less “give-away”, less rework)
- Streamline operator functions, improving productivity, and reducing training requirements
- Visibility – production monitoring, operator monitoring, and yield monitoring
- Traceability of pieces into cartons, cartons into pallets, pallets to customers
How it Works:
The Symphony: Packoff Manager follows this process:
Harvest Rooms
- A facility may have numerous stations in the harvest room(s), each equipped with a CW-90 check weigher loaded with Carlisle’s software. The operator selects the product (a tray of mushrooms, or a bulk “lug” of mushrooms), and fills it until it is within the allowable tolerances.
- Transaction recording: When the tray/lug is within tolerances, a label is printed on the attached Datamax-O’Neil E-class Mark III printer, and the operator affixes it to the product (the label has a 2D barcode with all the transaction information)
Slicing Area
- Product Transformation: using a scanner with a keypad and display, the operator can convert one product into another (eg: to convert whole mushrooms into a sliced mushroom product). New product labels are printed for affixing to each tray, and the relationship is recorded for traceability purposes
Production Area
- Packaging: A workstation running Carlisle Technology’s iCap is used for building cartons. The operator takes the trays that have been previously weighed, and scans the barcodes (with the Motorola DS9808 scanner) as they are placed into a carton. When full, a carton label is produced on the Datamax-O’Neil m-class printer. For bulk products, the mushrooms are loaded into cartons, and a label is produced for the carton.
- Yield analysis: Trays are randomly check-weighed for cooler shrink analysis reporting
- Pallet labelling: When an operator is finished loading a pallet of product (either the pallet is full, or he/she runs out of product), a pallet label is printed and affixed to the pallet. The label has a bar code, which links the pallet to all it’s composing cartons.
Features and Functionality
- Centrally controlled product file (products, packaging tare weights) accessible via web browser
- Operators assigned to stations via web browser (used for measuring productivity of operators)
- Filling of product trays (pieces) can be in separate locations from the packaging of cartons
Efficiency Reports:
- Scale report: shows production for each station within a given time period. Report showis products, quantities, weights, and giveaway
- Product report: shows production for all stations within a given time period
- Operator reports: shows production for each operator within a given time period, including efficiency metrics
- Shrink Analysis report: shows weighing on scale v
Traceability Reports:
- Carton pieces report: shows which pieces are in a particular carton, by either entering the carton ID, or by entering one of the piece IDs
- Tray Detail Information: shows details about a particular tray (piece), including product #, picking date/time, packaging time/date, operator, carton it went into
Administration Reports:
- Pack-off Product Listing: shows all pack-off products, with their descriptions, weight target and tolerances, tare weights
The iCap Weight Compliance application allows facilities to capture samples of standard weight product in order to provide proof that the product they’re shipping meets the regulations set forth in Canada’s Average System of Net Quantity Determination - where the supplier of a
packaged product is responsible for ensuring that consumers receive, on average, the declared quantity as shown on the label.
The application allows facilities to automate labour intensive manual processes. At the click of a button, facitlies can prove that the weighted average of a production lot – or – a pallet for that matter – is compliant with the regulations outlined in the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act.
Carlisle’s Weight Compliance application will monitor the following principles of the Average System:
- The declared quantity on a package should accurately reflect the quantity being supplied, so the average net contents of the packages in a lot may not be less than the declared net quantity.
- The control over production should be such that the individual packages are within tolerances. No more than 2.5% of the lot may have a negative error larger than the tolerance.
- The number of packages which may have excessive negative errors is limited. Not more than one package may contain less than twice the tolerance.
Operators have three options when it comes to setting up a batch. They can schedule by the number of pieces, the number of cartons, or can choose to sample by the pallet. Government regulations provide reference tables that are used by the application to determine sample size
based on the number of pieces in the production lot (or on the pallet if that option is selected). Depending on where the batch quantity falls within these reference tables, operators will need to sample a certain number of pieces in order to meet the requirements set out in the regulations.
Recently there have been significant product recalls due to outsourced ingredients. Even when a manufacturer’s finished product meets all of the required specifications, a recall may be driven by defective packaging materials. To address this specific food industry challenge it is critical that all ingredients as well as the packaging materials are tracked.
The Symphony “Raw Materials Manager” allows tight tracking of packaging, spices, liquid ingredients, allergenic and medicinal ingredients against the finished goods lot. This ensures instantaneous backward and forward traceability of ingredients and packaging materials, thereby reducing the risk of a food recall.
Features include:
- Interfaces to ERP Systems for Purchase Order Information
- Receiving of Dry Goods and Ingredients against Purchase Orders
- Formal Truck Approval
- HACCP Data Collection
- Inventory of Dry Goods and other Ingredients/Raw Materials
- WIP Issue towards Production Processes
- Reports
- Trace Production Lot# Sources
- Trace Production Lot# Derivatives
- Trace Vendor Lot# Derivatives
- Trace Box Sources
- Trace Box Derivatives
- Receiving Of Outside Purchases
- Product Consumption
- WIP Issue
- Inventory and Warehousing
- ERP Export interface
Today’s Label Print-and-Apply Systems have extraordinary capabilities. They are rugged and robust and ideal for industrial use. Print and Apply systems are capable of printing anything that a desktop printer can, they can keep up to high speed production lines, are robust enough to run 24 hours a day x 7 days a week, and are easily maintained for maximum uptime.
Carton labels can be side applied, front applied, side and front applied or corner wrapped. Labels can even be top applied at high speeds on variable-height boxes. A packing slip tag showing the contents of a carton can be printed on double sided tag stock and deposited into the carton. For brand protection, we can provide several tamper proof label print & apply solutions, the list goes on and on…
Carlisle Technology can supply label applicators with almost any print engine on the market, however, Carlisle has partnered with Datamax-O’Neil to supply the industry with applicators that utilize the strengths and innovation built into Datamax’s print engines.
Carlisle has extensive experience (20+ years) with many different applications and printing environments. Our expertise comes from working with various applicator manufacturers over the years, as well as from our own experience in building custom applicators. So we know how to match the applicator and the media (labels, ribbons) with your application.
For more information on printer applicators we carry, please click here
Product giveaway – the difference between what is paid for and what is actually shipped (keeping in mind that you cannot short change the customer) – can be very expensive, especially in the meat business! Carlisle offers software solutions to minimize giveaway and manage the tare weights of various packaging components (including real time inventory and consumption of these components). Changing components and their associate tare weights are simply administered through a Carlisle Solution.
To reduce giveaway – we offer solutions for:
- Componentized Package Tare Weight Management
- Over/under setpoint control on weigh/label stations
- Plant floor display of cumulative giveaway by product
- On-Line SPC Sampling
- Off-Line SPC Sampling
- EARS alerts in case of slippage
- Product Giveaway Web reports – real time
- Digital Dashboards for Management staff
The Produce Traceability Initiative (www.producetraceability.org) is an industry-wide effort to bring electronic traceability to the produce supply chain by 2012. Every case of produce must identify the brand owner, the Lot#/Batch#, and the pack or harvest date. Additionally, systems must be in place to record, store, and convey this information for all in bound cases as well as out bound cases. The goal of the PTI is to improve food safety by enabling product tracking throughout the produce supply chain. This is achieved by implementing the GS1 128 standard for labeling and recording producer and production information.
The timeline of the PTI is as follows:
Carlisle Technology supports the PTI
Carlisle Technology is well-equipped to help produce companies meet and exceed the PTI requirements, in order to provide expanded productivity benefits. With years of experience providing bar coding solutions for the food industry, Carlisle Technology is well ahead of the curve with regards to traceability solutions for produce. We have been providing bar code labeling, scanning, and traceability solutions for the meat and poultry industry in North America since 1988. Our first projects involving GS1 128 bar code labels were in 1993 when Loblaw Company, Canada’s largest grocery retailer, required meat and poultry companies to code cases of catch weight (variable weight) products with the brand new UCC/EAN-128 bar code (now called GS1-128).
Features
- Suite of mature products
- Designed using food industry best-practices
- Out of the box functionality for fast implementation
- Modular design to allow phased installation
- Expands to serialized product tracking when you are ready
- Integrates with external accounting systems
- Business Intelligence reports to improve productivity
Benefits
- Meet and exceed PTI standards
- Efficiently track product within facility
- Productivity improvements
- Yield monitoring
- Labour reduction
- Material cost control
- Quality control
- Brand Protection
- Risk Management
- Reduce impact of future product recalls
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