Mondelez in Herentals, Belgium, has decided to use electric drives for a new system for mixing chocolate Easter eggs. The main reasons for this decision were lower energy consumption, improved safety and greater flexibility in controlling speeds and positions. An ingenious system of conveyor belts ensures that each pack of Easter chocolate eggs has a nice mix of flavours.
Mondelez is a major international player in the food industry that has many well-known brands such as Côte d'Or, Milka and Oreo in its portfolio. Both the biscuit and chocolate divisions of the business have a factory in Herentals. The biscuit factory is where Lu's biscuits are made, among other treats. Mondelez Chocolates produces Leo biscuits, Côte d'Or bars and Easter eggs.
The new Ergomix project supports the production of Easter eggs,a production process that runs practically all year round so that there is enough stock at Easter to meet the sudden demand for this seasonal product. The name of the project refers to its original aim of improving ergonomics for operators. In the past, the eggs were mixed by manually combining bowls with different flavours, which was a very labour-intensive process. This is now done fully automatically in the new system.
As soon as the eggs leave the moulding line and are individually packaged, they are transported on a conveyor belt to the new system below, where they are sorted into pallet crates according to flavour. These bowls are then prepared for mixing by a robot or picked up by a mobile robot for temporary storage in a warehouse. As soon as all the flavours needed to produce a mix are ready, the eggs are transported to specific positions on a wide conveyor belt using funnels so that all the flavours are lined up next to each other. At the end, the eggs are returned to a pallet container, where they are perfectly mixed.
An initial challenge for the drive technology was that the eggs had to be filled and distributed evenly into the pallet containers, otherwise they would not be level and that would make stacking them impossible. The second challenge was positioning the funnels above the conveyor belt on which the mix is assembled. This had to be a flexible system as not every mix contains the same number of different flavours. Finally, a suitable drive had to be found for the robot gripper, which has to move the 150 kg pallet containers.