Confiserie Bosch growth sees higher turnover of its Wibele biscuits

The company, which changed hands in 2010, and moved to a new headquarters in Uhingen in 2018, has installed an Ishida multihead weigher, to weigh delicate and fragile products. 

Breakages

Each Wibele biscuit needs to look perfect in its packaging, and breakages must be kept to a minimum. They used to be packed by hand, which was very labour-intensive with little flexibility. 

“Sales have doubled in recent years, and our production lines could no longer keep up​,” said Wolfgang Hellstern, MD/owner, Confiserie Bosch. 

“We would encounter bottlenecks especially during peak times, and employee absences had disastrous consequences​.” 

Hellstern said, just like the other products Confiserie Bosch makes, including chocolates, sweets, praline eggs and chocolate-coated fruit, Wibele are extremely fragile and present a real challenge for a fully automated weighing and packing process. 

“Before we made our investment, we watched Ishida weighers during visits to other production facilities, which gave us some idea of the technology involved​,” added Hellstern. 

The 14-head CCW-RV-GS multihead weigher features sloping hoppers with minimum transfer distances and shallow angle discharge chutes with minimal drop heights, to ensure the products are handled with care.

Both the hoppers and the discharge chutes are fitted with removable synthetic liners for extra cushioning and a ring shutter underneath the discharge chute to reduce drop distances. 

The weigher is fed via a belt elevator and conveyor. A belt elevator and feeder then transfer the biscuits via the weigher's dispersion feeder table and the 14 radial feeder troughs to a set of curved pool and weigh hoppers with double opening doors. 

Anti-floor-vibration

The anti-floor-vibration system protects the load cell of the weigh hoppers from external vibrations emanating from the production environment. The weighed portions are then released from the timing hopper into a bagmaker underneath. 

Confiserie Bosch is now using its Ishida weighing and filling system to pack half of its range, amounting to around 80 products. The system switches between products several times a day which can be done seamlessly using different pre-sets that can be called up on the multihead weigher’s touch screen display. 

The bags have fill weights of between 40g and 200g with the weigher running at speeds of 60 weighments per minute and an accuracy variance of 0.1g per pack. In comparison, an employee could manage two packs per minute with the old manual packing process, and with a much lower accuracy and consistency. 

“This Improvement in performance cuts costs and means our investment is paying for itself very quickly​,” added Hellstern.