PECM Issue 42 2020 | Page 109

A FULLY INTEGRATED SOLUTION At Belsia, the line comprises a 10-head Ishida CCW-SE series multihead weigher with polished stainless-steel hoppers and an Astro bagmaker equipped with special stripping plates which clear the seal area before sealing to ensure excellent pack quality and close to zero film waste. In addition, Ishida has supplied a bucket elevator that feeds the potato chips to the weigher and a throat metal detector, positioned between the weigher and the bagmaker, to identify and reject any metal contamination before the potato chips are bagged. Belsia is packing both 150g and 40g bags on its Astro bagmaker. The new Ishida installation, which is operating at 30 packs per minute for the 150g bag format, has enabled Belsia to increase production to 800kg per day of processed potatoes, combining excellent equipment reliability and minimum downtime for product changeovers with accuracy to within one gram of the target weight, thus avoiding overfills. All these benefits combine to provide substantial savings for the company and a short investment payback Equally important, the line is scalable and therefore will be able to support Belsia’s ongoing development of its potato chip range to deliver “a new flavour each year”, according to Clémence Maisons. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION Matthieu Maisons concludes: “In addition to the reliability and speed of the line, we also appreciate its ease of use thanks to the intuitive touchscreens. Changing the bagmaker film reel takes only a few minutes and daily cleaning is easy. In our business where a production stoppage can very quickly cause problems, we are able to work with confidence because we know we can rely not only the Ishida equipment but also on Ishida’s fast-response after-sales service.” www.ishidaeurope.com Issue 42 PECM 109