Work-saving improvements for food-process lines
AssigneeNothum Manufacturing Company
InventorRobert G. Nothum
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Work-saving improvements for food-process lines include (1) mounting alternate machines of a food process line on pivot hardware to speed up washing and maintenance operations, (2) mounting the machines on rolling riding gear in order to speed up the activities of building and re-building food process lines of a different series of machines, or (3) isolate the food process line in its own tunnel and hence its own climate-controlled atmosphere to reduce conflicts with running two food process lines side by side where one food process line is a source of air borne allergens.
Claims20
A food-process line apparatus for determining a weight pick-up or loss value of a flowrate of food product pieces, comprising:
- a plurality of food-process line machines arranged in series from an upline end to a downline end;
- a conveyance configured to move the flowrate of the food product pieces along the food-process line;
- a selected food-process line coating machine having a primary coating operation configured to apply a respective coating material to the flowrate of the food product pieces;
- a weighing intake conveyor associated with the selected food-process line coating machine and configured to generate a weight-flow flowrate value of an inflow of food product pieces entering the primary coating operation;
- a weighing outflow conveyor associated with the selected food-process line coating machine and configured to generate a weight-flow flowrate value of an outflow of food product pieces exiting the primary coating operation;
- and
- a monitoring machine in communication with the weighing intake conveyor and the weighing outflow conveyor, the monitoring machine configured to difference the weight-flow flowrate value of the outflow and the weight-flow flowrate value of the inflow and, with the weight-flow flowrate value of the inflow, determine a weight pick-up or loss percent of the respective coating material through the selected food-process line coating machine.
A weighing outflow conveyor apparatus configured to be coupled to a food-process line coating machine, comprising:
- an endless belt arranged to longitudinally course around an upline nose end and a downline nose end;
- a drum motor mounted to have a relatively stationary drive axis when the weighing outflow conveyor apparatus is coupled to the food-process line coating machine;
- and
- a weight-sensor assembly comprising at least a laterally spaced pair of load cells supporting the weighing outflow conveyor apparatus cantilevered from the drum motor.
A food-process line weighing and computation system, comprising:
- a weighing intake conveyor configured to generate an inflow weight-flow flowrate value of food product pieces entering a selected food-process line coating machine;
- a weighing outflow conveyor configured to generate an outflow weight-flow flowrate value of food product pieces exiting the selected food-process line coating machine;
- and
- a processor configured to receive the inflow and outflow weight-flow flowrate values, difference the outflow weight-flow flowrate value and the inflow weight-flow flowrate value, and determine, from the differenced values, a weight pick-up or loss percent attributable to the selected food-process line coating machine.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.