The modern bakery sector has continued expanding at an exponential clip to meet increased demand. It’s almost as if you encounter dozens of new innovative and delicious recipes coming to market every day. For industrial-scale bakers, this presents a double-edged sword: while there’s plenty of opportunity to keep up with trends and develop new products, the skills gaps, ongoing labor shortages, sanitation concerns, and difficult-to-manage ingredients all pose substantial obstacles to bringing your ideas to fruition.
With the help of automation service providers and several recent advances in industrial processing technologies, bakers can now readily overcome these issues to unlock new levels of efficiency, consistency, and throughput capacity. And, fortunately, EZSoft has an extensive track record of helping commercial bakeries like yours streamline their processes while enhancing their operations to meet a wide range of production and quality needs.
Now, let’s take a look at how our products specifically help operations like yours streamline their production without raising costs.
Why consider bakery automation now?
Industrial-scale bakeries are often faced with the daunting task of producing large amounts of baked goods with a short turnaround time. And they, simultaneously, must maintain superior quality and consistency in every product they deliver to retailer shelves. As such, bakeries that must urgently increase their efficiency to remain competitive against larger-scale operations can benefit immensely from leveraging our industrial automation technologies and information control solutions.
Foremost, automating your baking processes eliminates error-prone manual procedures, replacing them with accuracy and consistency rates superior to virtually every manual alternative. Take, for example, ingredients batching. Automating your batching eradicates unnecessary delays while reducing the time it takes to complete each associated task.
To ensure bakeries remain productive, industrial automation brings advanced software and information controls into their production lines to increase operational visibility and efficiency. This way, timely and repetitive tasks, such as ingredients measuring, are accomplished after minimal effort, while recipe accuracy and product consistency remain unchanged or improve.
Commercial bakeries like yours can now capitalize on the advantages of industrial automation and optimize the consistent quality of their products while enhancing their overall productivity. Automated technologies provide a framework for a reliable commercial bakery optimization strategy while relieving you of costly and potentially labor-intensive tasks. Incrementally automating your facility is one of the best approaches for strategically positioning your bakery to achieve long-term success.
Leveraging automation for more efficient operations: A few case uses
Automation software and information controls can make a significant difference in the operations of commercial bakeries. It is now possible for commercial bakeries to streamline their production processes with the help of industrial automation. The latest machine-learning solutions give your bakery the necessary tools to adopt a well-organized and precise workflow that brings more efficiency to your production lines and ultimately reduces your overall operating costs.
Sponge mixing is a classically time-consuming activity in manual bakeries. Automation software simplifies this process by delivering an interface that integrates ingredient measurements, mixing times, and other relevant functions. These solutions allow bakers to produce more accurate, custom batches after minimal effort.
Automating also allows you to speed up traditional baking cycles, saving you money and time. Accurate online sensors monitor gas buildup in the oven so the software can activate and deactivate the air vents according to temperature and humidity levels. This function helps regulate the baking environment, providing highly accurate and consistent results.
Filling layers for the cakes requires multiple layers of preparation. Automation software allows bakers to control the precise timing of each step, from the make-up time for the sponge to the mixing of the filling to the blending of the flavoring and colorings. The software can manage the precise steps of the process, enabling greater accuracy and consistency in production results.
Or take cake slicing as another example. This is a decidedly tricky step because of the constant risk of uneven measurements or breakage. When you implement industrial automation software and information controls, you’ll ensure precise and consistent cake slicing. Automation gives you exact, even layers and prevents unnecessary ingredients waste.
After automating, commercial bakeries can efficiently freeze their filled cakes or defrost and depanne them with ease. By controlling the cooling process, you can manage freezing times with exacting precision, eliminating needless energy consumption and processing costs. The automation system also streamlines the defrosting and de-panning process, reducing the total time from production to market.
And, lastly, decorating your cakes can be significantly enhanced by utilizing automated bakery equipment. Automation systems enable bakers to custom-design their products in a shorter timeframe, letting them produce their end products quickly and with greater efficiency and accuracy.
How can automation enhance accuracy and simplify quality control?
Every commercial bakery is driven by the need to produce consistent, high-quality products in a fast and cost-efficient manner. Industrial automation software and information controls provide the tools and capabilities to design your own custom solution to meet the concise needs of your bakery. This element of flexibility allows you to optimize production and increase the quality of your products to better meet the demands of your customers.
By introducing automation into their facilities, commercial bakeries can streamline processes and create efficient, cost-effective workflows. Automated processes, such as weighing, mixing, and baking, automate tedious and time-consuming manual labor for improved production speeds. The technology may also be used to monitor the consistency of ingredients and products, helping ensure premium quality and consistency at every run.
Our industrial automation solutions similarly let commercial bakeries maintain a hygienic environment and meet regulatory safety and food hygiene standards. These systems have sophisticated inspection capabilities and can detect potential food safety issues before products reach the market. Automated software controls enable improved process monitoring to help you promptly identify and correct any emergent problems -before they escalate.
Start automating your process flows today
Enhancing commercial bakery operations is within reach with the right industrial automation software and information controls. EZSoft Inc. is committed to providing elite computer control systems tailored to the needs of baking operations of any scale.
Our skilled technicians boast expertise in programming leading products such as Rockwell Software, Invensys Wonderware, and GE Fanuc Proficy HMI/SCADA iFix to provide operators with the comprehensive control systems they need for real-time monitoring, graphical trending, alarming, report generation, and more.
From modifications to your existing control systems to developing fully custom solutions for your facility, our team of automation experts can support all your modern bakery needs. To bring your operations up to speed with the latest food manufacturing solutions, dial (484) 568-5040 and schedule your initial consultation today.
