The client is a benchmark enterprise in China’s high-end baking industry, renowned for its stringent quality standards and exquisite craftsmanship. However, their production process, reliant on traditional manual ingredient dispensing, faced efficiency bottlenecks and quality risks: manual formula verification was prone to ingredient confusion and weighing deviations, compromising product consistency and complicating quality control and data traceability.
Solution: Automated Minor Ingredient Assistance System
To break through this bottleneck, the client implemented the smart Automated Minor Ingredient Assistance System, establishing a fully digital closed-loop from formula management to production traceability:
- Precision Dispensing: The system automatically matches formula data and provides real-time operational guidance, eliminating human error and ensuring zero deviation in raw material ratios for every batch.
- Efficient Coordination: Electronic workflows replace paper-based documents, reducing manual verification steps and increasing dispensing efficiency by over 30%.
- Full Traceability: Key data such as dispensing time, operator, and raw material batches are completely recorded, enabling one-click traceability reports to meet compliance and quality audit requirements.
System Architecture & Core Functions
- Formula Management: Automatically retrieves production plans and formula data (via SAP interface or manual selection), supporting customizable tolerance ranges (e.g., ±0.2%).
- Scanning & Error-Proofing: Operators scan to verify ingredients. The system checks against formula information, triggering an alarm and locking the process in case of a mismatch.
- High-Precision Weighing: Real-time display of weight deviation. Qualified data (operator ID, time, weight, etc.) is automatically recorded. The system continuously checks until weights are within tolerance.
- Labeling & Traceability: After dispensing, a QR code label (containing formula, batch, weight, etc.) is printed. Scanning during feeding links production data, enabling full-process traceability.
Technical Highlights & Implementation Results
- Smart Error-Proofing & Efficiency Gain: Through scan verification and real-time weighing feedback, the dispensing error rate dropped to 0.02%, and single-batch dispensing time was reduced by 30%.
- Data Integration & Traceability: Seamless integration with the SAP system allows real-time production data synchronization into the corporate ERP. Supports one-click generation of batch traceability reports, meeting ISO 22000 and HACCP certification requirements.
- Optimized Human-Machine Interaction: Utilizes industrial-grade touchscreens and voice prompts to reduce operational complexity, cutting new employee training cycles from 7 days down to 2 days.
Value Realization
Following implementation, the system helped the client’s factory achieve three major improvements: standardization of manual dispensing, comprehensive digitization of quality control, and enhancement of product batch consistency to 99.9%. Furthermore, by reducing raw material waste and rework, annual production costs were saved, exceeding expectations by 30%. This solution provides a replicable, intelligent model for high-precision dispensing needs in industries such as food, chemicals, and new energy.
