"In the past, two workers were arranged to watch the scale plate and adjust the parameters in each shift. Now the equipment can complete these operations by itself." In the newly built intelligent filling workshop of Jinlong Grain and Oil, Production Director Chen Wei pointed to the running electronic quantitative packaging scale and sighed. This edible oil company with an annual production capacity of 200,000 tons saw a sharp increase in customer complaints due to measurement deviations last year. It was the application of electronic quantitative packaging scales that gave their production line a new lease of life.
Camellia oil, the main product of Jinlong Grain and Oil, often has problems of wall hanging and dripping during the filling process due to its unique viscosity characteristics. The fixed compensation mode of traditional packaging machines is difficult to adapt to viscosity fluctuations, resulting in the actual filling volume of each barrel fluctuating in the range of ±1.5%. This not only causes more than 200 tons of raw material loss each year, but also leads to the cancellation of three overseas orders due to the strict requirements of international customers for measurement accuracy. The production department has calculated that if the measurement deviation is controlled within ±0.3%, the loss can be reduced by more than 4.8 million yuan each year.
This dilemma has ushered in a turnaround after the introduction of the electronic quantitative packaging scale. The intelligent weighing system equipped with the equipment can automatically identify the flow characteristics of different batches of camellia oil through 128 sets of viscosity-flow comparison parameter libraries. When the infrared sensor detects a change in material viscosity, the dynamic compensation algorithm will adjust the valve opening and vibration frequency within 0.2 seconds to ensure that the filling accuracy is stable at ±0.25%. "It's like installing a thinking brain on the packaging machine." The workshop director described the transformation effect in this way.
The application value of the electronic quantitative packaging scale is far more than the precise measurement of a single device. Through the industrial Internet of Things module, each device uploads more than 3,000 production data to the enterprise ERP system every hour. Based on this, the purchasing department optimized the raw material procurement cycle and increased the inventory turnover rate of camellia seeds by 28%; the quality inspection department used the packaging weight distribution map to trace back the process defects of the pressing process, reducing the residual oil rate of pressing by 0.7 percentage points.
More significant changes occurred at the end of the packaging line. The process that used to require 6 quality inspectors to conduct sampling inspections is now completed by the visual inspection module integrated with the electronic quantitative packaging scale. The hyperspectral camera can simultaneously identify the sealing of the bottle mouth and the integrity of the label, and control the missed detection rate to below 0.05‰. This system played a key role in recent export orders, helping customers pass the surprise inspection of the European Food Safety Authority.
The benefits brought by intelligent weighing technology are extending to the upstream and downstream of the supply chain. Jinlong Grain and Oil found that there was room for optimization of the filling head air pressure value through the energy consumption monitoring function of the electronic quantitative packaging scale. After adjusting the air supply parameters, the average daily operating time of the air compressor was shortened by 3.2 hours, and the annual electricity saving reached 150,000 kWh. These data were also shared with equipment suppliers to promote energy-saving design improvements for the new generation of packaging machines.
Workshop statistics show that the electronic quantitative packaging scale has increased the single-line packaging efficiency to 1,200 barrels per hour and reduced labor costs by 62%. But the more far-reaching impact lies in the transformation of the production model - when the equipment begins to optimize the filling parameters autonomously, and when the data of each link can guide decision-making in real time, the company has truly entered a new stage of "refining oil with data". Standing on the viewing platform of the smart workshop, Director Chen pointed to the electronic quantitative packaging scale that was automatically switching the production mode and said: "Next month we will use this system to produce walnut oil, and the parameter switching only requires two clicks on the screen." This may be the charm of smart packaging technology: it not only solves current problems, but also opens up possibilities for the future. As more food processing companies embark on this transformation path, electronic quantitative packaging scales are redefining the speed and precision of China's smart manufacturing.
