Reaping the benefits of the
‘digital sausage factory’
Investment in cutting edge technology, Managing Director Thomas Schmiedbauer. retrieved from the high-bay storage at
including industry-specific software from “Thanks to CSB, our company is much a CSB-Rack. Conveyor belts then take
food and drink IT specialist CSB-System, rationalised in many areas.” the retrieved crates to the mixing unit for
has enabled leading Austrian sausage
producer Wiesbauer to be at the forefront
of the development of the smart food
factory.
When the company’s facility in Vienna
was conceived more than 20 years ago,
Non-stop cutting, batch
processing and production
The design of the factory ensures a
highly automated and therefore fast
process flow from cutting to production.
chopping. The next stages are grinding
and stuffing, followed by the smokehouse
and the fryer and cooker units. At
another data capture station, the finished
products are entered into the warehouse
before they are customer labelled and
dispatched.
all the major factors for a smart factory Movement of hanging meat to the cutting were taken into account during the lines is carried out automatically using planning stage. They included paperless CSB software. The meat cuts are placed information processing, automatic in E3 crates and transported to the high- This optimised production is supported
production and logistics processes, bay meat warehouse in accordance with by effective data management that
intelligent material flow control, and information from Recipe Management. ensures a smooth and flawless flow of
networking with other company locations On their way, scanners at strategic information. This is particularly important
information points read the crate in weigh price labelling, which has to
barcodes including the crate number, handle Wiesbauer’s great variety of
weight excluding tare, item number and sausage and ham products with the need
batch number as well as the destination for the correct recipe details and food
defined in the CSB-System. information regulations to be included on
A strategically important part of this
was the integration of all processes
into one software system. Enterprise
resource planning, labelling, logistics and
traceability are all accessed from the same
Error-free labels
each label.
system. “It is a big advantage to have The required quantities of meat and fat one partner and one system that is so are calculated during stock removal, This is achieved by the central storage
closely interlinked,” explains Wiesbauer’s based on the relevant recipe details, and of all relevant labelling details in the ERP
22 FDPP - www.fdpp.co.uk