Case Study: Vision systems rise to the baker’s challenge
For more than 100 years, the Roberts family has baked some of the finest breads and morning goods at its Roberts Bakery for retail and catering customers throughout the UK, Europe and beyond. Frank Roberts produces over two million baked goods each week. This high production rate caused difficulties with the inspection of leftover bread in their loaf tins. They now rely on Cognex In-Sight cameras with a laser line scanner to optimize their production lines and ensure the inspection of each loaf tin after baking, thus reducing waste.
The dough is placed in tins to be baked in batches at an impressive 5,200 farmhouse loaves per hour, six days a week. After de-panning, leftover bread would need to be removed manually before the tins could be reused in the process. Normal vision methods were not sufficient to detect when manual de-panning was necessary because of the dark-colored tins. Waste and production delays required an urgent resolution.