Customer Story: End-of-line marking and inspection Block House

“Our production facilities pose challenges for technical equipment that not every system can handle.”

Jörg Jablonski – Managing Director Block House Butchery

Jörg Jablonski is Managing Director for Production and Technology at the Block House Butchery. He and his team have been working together with Wipotec for almost 15 years. “We use Wipotec technology in the end-of-line functions. Primarily, we need to ensure quality, but we also want to document controlled processes.” This is why systems and software from almost all of Wipotec’s business units are in use at Block House Butchery – also historically developed in line with customers’ requirements. So this collaboration has a long history, but it always looks towards the future. Block House increasingly relies on automation in its production processes and requires technology that can meet this demand: “We live up to our customers’ trust in our brand by using state-of-the-art technology for quality assurance.”

Block House’s hygiene standards are just as high as their demands on quality. Even in the final packaging area, wet cleaning must take place on a daily basis. Combined with the low temperature, this is a particularly challenging environment for technical equipment. The first Wipotec checkweigher was installed in the butchery back in 2010 – and is still operating perfectly. The ambient temperature in the butchery has a significant influence on the equipment and the accuracy of the various systems. Special accuracy is required here. After all, Block House also wants to live up to its quality standards and comply with the stated weight values in accordance with the pre-packaging directive. As Jörg Jablonski states, the fact that all determined weight values are recorded and stored centrally in Comscale is a great help.

Is a metal detector not sufficient to eliminate foreign bodies? With Block House’s sense of responsibility, this is definitely not the case. Of course, Wipotec metal detectors are also in use in the butchery. According to Jörg Jablonski, they are “the absolute basic requirement for a food producing company.” Just like the checkweighers, they are connected to Comscale, making all collected data traceable and comprehensible.

In meat processing, it is important to filter out not only metallic foreign bodies but also a wide range of natural foreign bodies. The raw material may contain cartilage, bone, or other particles that the metal detector would not detect. This is where Wipotec’s SC-E X-ray technology takes over. Block House even detects spice nests with the scanner, preventing affected products from coming off the production line.

“We decided to use an X-ray detector in order to be able to exclude all types of foreign bodies.”

Jörg Jablonski – Managing Director Block House Butchery

The latest acquisition from Wipotec is TQS – Traceable Quality System. It is also installed at the end of the line and handles product marking. And again, Block House proves to be exceptionally conscientious and foresighted: “In view of the speed of the automated process, it was absolutely essential for us to integrate a camera inspection system into the line to avoid recall campaigns due to incorrectly declared or undeclared goods from retailers.” 

Unlike the common approach of installing a separate printer in line, Block House has opted for a holistic system. Printer, camera and transport are coordinated and unified in a central control system. The result speaks for itself and Jörg Jablonski has significantly optimized the production process: “We create the layout once, and that then applies to both printing and camera setup. So the operator does not have to teach in the printer and camera separately, as with traditional devices.” Jörg Jablonski appreciates the system’s thermal inkjet printer (TIJ): “We are very pleased with the print quality, accuracy
and clarity of the cartridge system. The classic inkjet printer always has its disadvantages.” The production staff at Block House are particularly impressed by the fact that the time and effort required for refilling and cleaning has been significantly reduced.

“We have to guarantee 100 % that the product we place on the market is completely and correctly marked.”

Jörg Jablonski – Managing Director Block House Butchery

“Installation was extremely straightforward and smooth, so we were able to get the system up and running very quickly.” This efficiency was the deciding factor for Block House to select TQS. The most significant advantage however is evident not during commissioning, but in ongoing production. Already when selecting the system, they found that “everything is very pragmatic and simple to use in production mode.” Operators control all machine functions via the central touch display using the ConfigureFast software. As a result, article changes and layout changes become minimally error-prone and maximally user-friendly.

“Wipotec has created a software that allows all employees to change and create layouts using just a few buttons.”

Jörg Jablonski – Managing Director Block House Butchery

Currently, Block House products are marked with the freeze date, best before date and lot number. With TQS, Jörg Jablonski has also planned ahead: “In the future, the market will develop in such a way that we will increasingly use two-dimensional printing, a QR code for example, to be able to integrate much more information in marking and labeling. Using this technology, we are ready for the future. We are able to place 2D codes on our products and thus provide food retailers with more information.” As soon as the code contains production-related data, it can no longer be pre-printed in the packaging design. The TQS at Block House then generates a code from the text content and also additionally prints it out.

Block House uses Comscale for quality assurance purposes and to maintain an overview during dual-shift operation. The fact that all Wipotec systems are connected to this system is an enormous added value for Jörg Jablonski: “The software takes care of all the documentation, reporting and data archiving for us. We can access the data at any time, evaluate the statistics, and even detect where problems have occurred in the past. Especially for audits, Comscale is highly relevant to us. Thanks to the Comscale software, we have seamless documentation with very clear traceability.”
 

For Jörg Jablonski, excellent service is one major reason for the longstanding collaboration with Wipotec: “We have very good support in-house.” The more different systems are used in the butchery, the more the benefits are for Block House. Instead of hiring different companies and service technicians for checkweighers, metal detectors, X-ray inspection, printers and cameras, all systems are serviced together.

“We want to continue with Wipotec in the future because we are very satisfied with both the technology and the service.”

Jörg Jablonski – Managing Director Block House Butchery