In recent years, large and medium-sized industrial bakeries have automated the processing of raw materials and become the international leader in the field. Now small bakeries are also coming into automation. With reasonable investment, dosing automation will bring better competitiveness and, on the other hand, will be able to comply with the EU’s stricter law on the traceability of manufacturing materials. With an automatic raw material system, bakery production can be convincingly controlled and conveniently documented.
The automation of the dosing of raw materials has naturally started with larger bakeries, but has now expanded into smaller and smaller units. With modular solutions in the market, the smaller bakeries can begin the automation of their dough making step-by-step.
Homogeneity is the key to reduced loss
The uniformity of the dough improves the throughput of the products on the production line. As dosing automation produces less and less obsolete production, there is no need to bake so-called extra doughs. Thanks to better inventory management, raw material inventories can be significantly reduced. The ergonomics of the work improve with the elimination of unnecessary and heavy lifting of sacks and the working environment becomes virtually dust-free.
Big Bag dosing is a good start for a smaller bakery
Powdea has developed a modular dosing system that can be implemented gradually. At its best, the automation of a smaller bakery in this
respect can begin with the acquisition of one or two big bag stations for the main ingredients. From big bags, one can dispense the wheat and rye flour directly into the dough bowl with accurate measurement of the amount. The investment is not great and it generates immediate benefits in terms of better ingredient use and freeing the baker to do more productive work.
The system can then be expanded as needed. Purchasing a flour silo is by no means always necessary. Almost all the ingredients used by bakeries are now available in big bags. The investment into a big bag unit is a good start for the automation of the dough making process.
Integrated water dispensing reduces mistakes
The correct temperature of the water is one of most important factor effecting the quality of the dough. By expanding the control system to include automatic water dispensing, the water dispenser gets the dosing instructions from the main operator panel automatically, thus eliminating the risk of human mistake keying the setting for the stand-alone water mixers.
Making of the small ingredient pre-mixes can be automated
In smaller bakeries, facilities are often limited. Therefore the lack of space can be reason preventing investment to dosing machines. With such situations in mind, Powdea has developed Powdermatic Lite, a compact dosing machine with wheels that dispenses small ingredients automatically and according to a recipe into collection bins. The equipment frees the dough maker from manual weighing of pre-mixes and, on the other hand, ensures that the products are 100% according to the recipes when dosing is automatic and controlled.
Labour costs halved
The rationalization of the production of dough can half the labor costs in this respect, as the baker is able to separate itself from the dough making for other stages of the process.
