PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Imaging system controls baking process on production line to improve sandwich bun quality

Imaging system controls baking process on production line to improve sandwich bun quality
2011-03-09
(Press-News.org) The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) may possess the secret to baking perfect buns every time. Its researchers have developed a production-line system that automatically inspects the quality of sandwich buns exiting the oven and adjusts oven temperatures if it detects unacceptable buns.

"We have closed the loop between the quality inspection of buns and the oven controls to meet the specifications required by food service and fast food customers," said GTRI senior research engineer Douglas Britton. "By creating a more accurate, uniform and faster assessment process, we are able to minimize waste and lost product."

During existing inspection processes, workers remove a sample of buns each hour to inspect their color. Based on this assessment, they manually adjust the oven temperature if the buns appear too light or too dark. But with more than 1,000 buns leaving a bakery production line every minute, there is a great need for automated control to make more rapid corrections to produce buns of consistent color, size, shape and seed coverage.

"Automated control over the baking process is necessary to produce a consistent product through batch changes, shift changes, daily and seasonal temperature and humidity changes, and variations in ingredients," added Britton.

Working with baking company Flowers Foods, headquartered in Thomasville, Ga., and Baking Technology Systems (BakeTech), a baking equipment manufacturer in Tucker, Ga., Britton and GTRI research scientist Colin Usher have tested their industrial-quality prototype system. Made of stainless steel, the system is dust and water resistant, and mounts to existing conveyor belts as wide as 50 inches.

The prototype system has been shown at the International Baking Industry Exposition held in Las Vegas. Initial funding for this project was provided by Georgia's Traditional Industries Program for Food Processing, which is managed through the Food Processing Advisory Council (FoodPAC).

Britton and Usher tested the system in a Flowers Foods bakery for a year, running it regularly for hour-long intervals. During this testing phase, the system successfully inspected a variety of buns, including seeded buns, unseeded buns, different size buns and different top-bun shapes. For the past year, the system has been in full-operational mode in the bakery.

"Without the imaging system, it would be impossible for an operator to respond quickly enough to make the correct changes to the oven to improve the target color of the product," said Stephen Smith, BakeTech's vice president and director of engineering.

As fresh-baked buns move along Flowers' production line, a digital camera captures an image of them. Items not measuring up in terms of color are identified by imaging software and the color information is automatically sent to the oven controllers, which adjust the oven temperature to correct the issue.

"Our system reduces the time between noticing a problem and fixing it," Usher explained. "The window for correction is short, though, because an entire batch may only take 12 minutes to bake and the buns stay in the oven for eight minutes, providing a four-minute window to correct the temperature of the batch once the first buns come out so that the rest of the buns in the batch are an acceptable color when they come out of the oven."

The system also automatically records data including shape, seed distribution, size and contamination to generate production reports that are immediately available for statistical process control. Another feature of the system is that the conveyor belt can be any color except the color of the buns. This allows the system to image buns on almost any conveyor belt surface or in pans.

In the future, the imaging system could be adapted to control the quality of other bakery products, such as biscuits, cookies, crackers, bread and pies.





INFORMATION:

[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Imaging system controls baking process on production line to improve sandwich bun quality

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

UC Davis pain research may pave the way to understanding and controlling chronic pain

2011-03-09
Researchers at the University of California, Davis have discovered a "cross-talk" between two major biological pathways that involve pain—research that may pave the way to new approaches to understanding and controlling chronic pain. And they did it with something old, new, practical and basic. The newly published research reveals that analgesia mediated by inhibitors of the enzyme, soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH), is dependent on a pain-mediating second messenger known as cyclic adenosinemonophosphate or cAMP. "The interaction of many complex biological pathways is ...

Internet catches updated butterfly and moth website

2011-03-09
Why should we care about butterflies and moths? Thanks to butterflies, bees, birds, and other animal pollinators, the world's flowering plants are able to reproduce and bear fruit. That very basic capability is at the root of many of the foods we eat. And, not least, pollination adds to the beauty we see around us. Yet today, there is evidence of alarming pollinator population declines worldwide. Fortunately, science investigators of this crucial issue can use data collected and organized in the Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) database to monitor the ...

Now, the story can be told – how scientists helped ID 'Amerithrax'

2011-03-09
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – It took nearly a decade before University of Maryland researchers were allowed to talk about their work identifying the anthrax strain used in the 2001 deadly letter attacks. But now, they and the other key members of the high-powered science team have published the first account of the pioneering work, which launched the new field of "microbial forensics" and gave bioterrorism investigators a way to "fingerprint" bacteria. The current online Early Edition of the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) details the multi-institutional research ...

A more definitive test for a common sexually transmitted infection

2011-03-09
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A study from the microbiology lab at Rhode Island Hospital has found that a new test may be more accurate in identifying a common sexually transmitted infection (STI), Trichamonos vaginalis (TV). The researchers also noted a high prevalence of TV in women in the 36- to 45- year-old age group -- a group not normally included in the recommended STI screening criteria. The study is now published online in advance of print in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. TV is a STI that can affect both men and women, and its symptoms can be associated with many ...

Researchers find drug that stops progression of Parkinson's disease in mice

2011-03-09
AURORA, Colo. (March 8, 2011) – In a major breakthrough in the battle against Parkinson's disease, researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine have discovered a drug that stops the progression of the degenerative illness in mice and is now being tested in humans. "Drugs currently used to treat Parkinson's disease just treat symptoms; they do not stop the disease from getting worse," said senior author Curt Freed, MD, who heads the division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at the CU School of Medicine. "We've now discovered that we can prevent ...

Researchers discover new wintering grounds for humpback whales using sound

2011-03-09
In the thick of whale season, researchers from Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shed new light on the wintering grounds of the humpback whale. The primary breeding ground for the North Pacific was always thought to be the main Hawaiian Islands (MHI). However, a new study has shown that these grounds extend all the way throughout the Hawaiian Archipelago and into the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI), also known as Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM). Humpback whales, an ...

Study: Negative classroom environment adversely affects children's mental health

2011-03-09
WASHINGTON, DC, March 3, 2011 — Children in classrooms with inadequate material resources and children whose teachers feel they are not respected by colleagues exhibit more mental health problems than students in classrooms without these issues, finds a new study in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. "Sociologists and other researchers spend a lot of time looking at work environments and how they are linked to the mental health of adults, but we pay less attention to the relationship between kids' well-being and their 'work' environments—namely ...

The most distant mature galaxy cluster

The most distant mature galaxy cluster
2011-03-09
"We have measured the distance to the most distant mature cluster of galaxies ever found", says the lead author of the study in which the observations from ESO's VLT have been used, Raphael Gobat (CEA, Paris). "The surprising thing is that when we look closely at this galaxy cluster it doesn't look young -- many of the galaxies have settled down and don't resemble the usual star-forming galaxies seen in the early Universe." Clusters of galaxies are the largest structures in the Universe that are held together by gravity. Astronomers expect these clusters to grow through ...

Americans have higher rates of most chronic diseases than same-age counterparts in England

2011-03-09
Researchers announced today in the American Journal of Epidemiology that despite the high level of spending on healthcare in the United States compared to England, Americans experience higher rates of chronic disease and markers of disease than their English counterparts at all ages.. Why health status differs so dramatically in these two countries, which share much in terms of history and culture, is a mystery. The study uses data from two nationally representative surveys (see info below) to compare the health of residents of the United States and England from 0 to ...

New Collections Added By Kris Hardy Canvas Art

2011-03-09
Always trying to keep his collections fresh and up to date, Kris has added a selection of new work for 2011. And it's been another bust start to the year for Kris. Early in February saw kris exhibit at Spring Fair 2011 at the NEC for the first time. Spring Fair showcases the best of British and international design led products. It was a successful show for Kris both in terms of showing his artwork to different audiences and making new connections. "My first Spring Fair was a great experience giving me lots of inspiration and new contacts" Kris adds. Kris's canvas ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

KAIST Develops Retinal Therapy to Restore Lost Vision​

Adipocyte-hepatocyte signaling mechanism uncovered in endoplasmic reticulum stress response

Mammals were adapting from life in the trees to living on the ground before dinosaur-killing asteroid

Low LDL cholesterol levels linked to reduced risk of dementia

Thickening of the eye’s retina associated with greater risk and severity of postoperative delirium in older patients

Almost one in ten people surveyed report having been harmed by the NHS in the last three years

Enhancing light control with complex frequency excitations

New research finds novel drug target for acute myeloid leukemia, bringing hope for cancer patients

New insight into factors associated with a common disease among dogs and humans

Illuminating single atoms for sustainable propylene production

New study finds Rocky Mountain snow contamination

Study examines lactation in critically ill patients

UVA Engineering Dean Jennifer West earns AIMBE’s 2025 Pierre Galletti Award

Doubling down on metasurfaces

New Cedars-Sinai study shows how specialized diet can improve gut disorders

Making moves and hitting the breaks: Owl journeys surprise researchers in western Montana

PKU Scientists simulate the origin and evolution of the North Atlantic Oscillation

ICRAFT breakthrough: Unlocking A20’s dual role in cancer immunotherapy

How VR technology is changing the game for Alzheimer’s disease

A borrowed bacterial gene allowed some marine diatoms to live on a seaweed diet

Balance between two competing nerve proteins deters symptoms of autism in mice

Use of antifungals in agriculture may increase resistance in an infectious yeast

Awareness grows of cancer risk from alcohol consumption, survey finds

The experts that can outsmart optical illusions

Pregnancy may reduce long COVID risk

Scientists uncover novel immune mechanism in wheat tandem kinase

Three University of Virginia Engineering faculty elected as AAAS Fellows

Unintentional drug overdoses take a toll across the U.S. unequally, study finds

A step toward plant-based gelatin

ECMWF unveils groundbreaking ML tool for enhanced fire prediction

[Press-News.org] Imaging system controls baking process on production line to improve sandwich bun quality