A twin-head, triple-pan scale system at Diamond of California’s Robertsdale, AL, plant reduces giveaway, lessens labor costs, and saves on forklift rental costs.
By Jim Butschli, Features Editor
Before this summer, operators at Diamond of California’s Robertsdale, AL, plant manually filled bulk quantities of in-shell nuts into bags and boxes. The process was not only labor-intensive but created excessive product giveaway. With the July addition of a micro-processor-controlled, triple-pan weighing system, the plant has
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reduced giveaway by 50%;
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increased filling speeds of 50-lb bags to 450/hr from 250/hr;
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saved 1% in labor costs during each nine-month growing season; and
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realized savings in forklift rental costs
“Before, we had two people manually filling bags [ or boxes ] while one person sewed bags shut,” recalls Bo Feely, Robertsdale’s plant superintendent. “When we filled manually with the older scale we were using, we would overfill bags, and we had a lot of giveaway and lost time,” he notes.