The Ames plant, which has the capacity to produce 150,000 tons of pasta
annually, houses five Hi-Speed checkweighers (two Cornerstones and
three Checkmates) with Safeline metal detectors on every line.
The company’s new plant in Avon, NY, was designed to be
state-of-the-art, according to Barilla plant engineer John Davlin, who
recognized the benefits of choosing equipment that could interface
easily with the automation infrastructure of the new plant,
standardized on Rockwell Automation’s ControlLogix programmable logic
controllers.
“We must have five different types of PLCs in Ames, and the maintenance
and training costs are huge,” Davlin explains. “The goal is centralized
data management and to reduce the number of PLCs to one. We knew
Hi-Speed’s Ethernet/IP fieldbus would be interfaced with Rockwell.”
Also, the equipment needed to offer reliability, ease of maintenance,
and accuracy while meeting Barilla’s data output requirements, adds
Davlin.
“One of the things I like about Mettler-Toledo Hi-Speed checkweighers
is that they hold their accuracy after they’re set,” says Davlin. An
equal number of Safeline metal detectors went online in the new Avon
plant. Plans are to add three more production lines to the new plant
and equip them all with Mettler-Toledo Hi-Speed checkweighers and
Safeline metal detectors.
