The entire process includes mixing, layering, cooking and cutting, drying, cooling and packaging. The noodles are usually in the form of strips or strips and are a mixture of wheat flour, water and salt. Noodles are one of the most common foods in Asia and are popular with countries such as China, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. With the continuous increase of immigration, the Chinese market is gradually opening up, and noodles are spreading throughout the Far East. The demand for noodles in Western countries is also rising significantly. The packaging system of the processing line was also customized according to the customer's requirements: the noodles folded into squares were placed in a 400-gram bag.
“Face noodles†and “noodles†are sometimes used as the same word, but the two foods are actually very different. The pasta is made of hard wheat coarse powder, while the noodles are made of soft wheat flour; not only that, the processing methods of the two are not the same. In recent years, according to different market and consumer preferences, noodles have also produced some new varieties. There are wheat, rice, potatoes and buckwheat on the raw materials. The processing methods are divided into dry and deep-fried. There are also many choices for cooking and seasoning.
New noodle processing line
The Pavan Group is the world's leading designer and manufacturer of automated food processing equipment. They recently built and installed a noodle processing line for a large multinational customer with a capacity of 1,500 kg per hour.
This processing line can be used to produce pre-cooked dry noodles with a mass of 67.5 grams per noodle. The entire process includes mixing, layering, cooking and cutting, drying, cooling and packaging. The innovation of the solution offered by Pavan is that the entire process is fully automated: the traditional manual noodle making process is completely replaced by automation, and all the features of the craftsmanship are retained.
Drive and automation
In order to meet the needs of customers, Pavan chose Siemens' SINAMICS S120 motion control system. Known for its flexibility, this system is ideal for a wide range of applications: it can be used in discrete or single-axis independent mode (AC / AC), as well as a mini-version (AC / DC) in a centralized configuration, the latter Control of energy recovery from the motor is critical. Pavan has tried to find a system with a very high level of automation software and hardware integration, which not only optimizes programming and assembly time, but also manages and maintains it through a single platform. Siemens' Totally Integrated Automation uses Drive, PLC and HMI platforms and is equipped with a wide range of diagnostic functions: from PLC software to communication network status, to drive diagnostics and configuration.
Pavan's noodle processing line has a high yield and an error rate of almost zero. The entire processing line contains multiple processing equipment: each processing equipment must be synchronized with other equipment without errors: this is why Pavan chose Siemens' 1FK7 servo motor. The 1FK7 is connected to the SINAMICS S120 via Drive-CLiQ. The digital communication bus adds self-reading capability to all motor nameplates, so that no errors occur during assembly and replacement: the motor model and serial number can be automatically verified by the system and the operator will not make mistakes during production.
Siemens' latest drive system solves some of the problems that were common in previous technologies, opening up new ideas for mechanical applications. In the food industry, this means increasing productivity and reducing the possibility of downtime. Thanks to Siemens' PLC S7 300 T, the configuration of the processing system is independent, the switching time of different products is shorter, the output is higher, and the efficiency of the production line is higher. Not only that, because the performance of the processing line has been improved, the range of motion of the mechanical device is larger, and the footprint of the factory can be correspondingly smaller.