Haas-Mondomix uses single control platform in its High Speed Depositor machines

Machine builder adopts a Rockwell Automation platform for speed and accuracy while maintaining existing software congurations

Solutions
High Speed Depositor, capable to ll on the chocolate moulds 120 times a minute Spraying products in complicated shapes on the y onto a conveyor belt Kinetix Servo control, which is fast and precise, and oers ease of use for the engineering and maintenance Synchrononising all movements of the spray-block PLC platform RSLogix 5000 as base

Results
Huge amounts of time saved Software reuse Scalability, from simple to very complex

Background
Whether a customer wants to produce a lling for a bonbon, double wafer or cake roll with dierent layers; the lling should always be applied quickly and precisely. Haas-Mondomix in Almere, The Netherlands, builds high-speed depositor machines for this purpose. Customers include industrial bakeries and sweets manufacturers that desire higher productivity and constant quality. During the past year Haas Mondomix has experienced enormous development in this area. The company, which is part of the Austrian Franz Haas Wael- und Keksanlagen-Industrie group from Vienna, has a sound reputation in the construction of aerators with complete process lines for the production of creams and llings.

Challenge
Aeration is the terminology used in the baking industry which refers to beating air into a cream or fatty mass - the same one would use a mixer to make whipped cream. The next important step that Haas Mondomix took recently was to develop machines that deposit llings onto a mould, e.g. a biscuit or bonbon. On the international market these machines are referred to as depositors. Haas Mondomix introduced its rst XYZ depositor on the market in 2008, and now also supplies the High Speed Depositors, which has become a very successful part of its product range. The market responded positively to this development, and as a result the company has increasingly focused its eorts on the production of depositors, in addition to aerators. The depositors vital components include a pump to transport the lling and a spray beam with a variable number of nozzles to apply the lling. To make sure that all the spray beams movements occur precisely and synchronously with the pump's actions, the engineers at Haas Mondomix adopted the RSLogix control platform from Rockwell Automation. John Bruins, System Developer at Haas-Mondomix explained the reasons for this choice. The criteria for the engineering components of our machines are based on simplicity, saving time and reusing software. That is why

we chose Rockwell Automation. Important factors also taken into consideration were the demand and acceptation from the market, and the technical requirement in using the Rockwell Automation control platform solution. Other motion suppliers in the market, have their own PLC and a separate motion platform. Rockwell Automation however, uses one single control platform to operate the machine to perform the motion tasks. The motion controller is integrated in the CPU, the main advantages here, being the easy to programme conditions. The linear movement is nothing more than a block in the Process Automation Controller (PAC) programme. The motion tasks are programmed from the same RSLogix 500 control platform, thus creating uniformity throughout. This is also important for us as some of our employees are not technically trained so It Is imperative they understand the process. Our mechanics are also familiar on working with Allen-Bradley machine controls from Rockwell Automation. They understand the Allen-Bradley ControlLogix PACs which are used together with the Allen-Bradley Kinetix 6000 motion control in the High Speed Depositor. The static model includes a smaller CompactLogix controller which is combined with the same Kinetix 6000 motion control. This means the same software is used during installation and maintenance.

The challenge in developing the High Speed Depositor was to create a machine that could process the lling onto the chocolate moulds 120 times a minute. This occurs on a conveyor belt where six rows of 20 chocolates pass per minute. This needs to be done accurately and without air bubbles to produce beautifully lled chocolate. Our design was based on the tri-axial simple depositor. This provided the basis for the HSD," says Bruins. "We were able to copy parts of the old programming onto the new system, which was very handy. It saved us a huge amount of time. This is very similar to objectoriented programming; 90% of the programme parts are objects. This means the software for the small machine is practically the same as for that of the big model; only the parameters are dierent."

Solution
Bruins continues "Our solution for the High Speed Depositor is an Allen-Bradley Servo Control, which is fast and precise, and oers ease-of-use for engineering and maintenance aspects. It is also scalable; from simple to very complex. All the controls for the new machine were built with minor adjustments to the software. Our engineer's work primarily consisted of conguring the software, instead of actual programming it - a signicant time saver. The nal result is a High Speed Depositor, which works both statically and dynamically, with various capacities. The softwares broad applicability means that we can supply the right machines to our customers, adapted to meet their specic needs, as well as maintaining a fast, user-friendly machine."

Results
It might sound strange but our end users are ultimately not interested in the installed components in the machine. They mainly look at production capacity and overall quality of the nal product. To most end users, the processes that occur within the machine are of little interest to them. However, as machine builders, we need to look at it from a dierent perspective. To us the key aspects are eciency, ease of engineering, the ability to reuse software, uniformity and scalability, explains Bruins The High Speed Depositor produces spray products in complicated shapes that are sprayed onto the 'y' of a conveyor belt. This is done by an Allen-Bradley Servodriven pump that makes sure the products all have the same constant shape. The spray head which houses the dierent nozzles only needs to make an X and Z movement.

Because this requires a movement of 44mm in 0.1 seconds with a weight of 250 kgs, Haas-Mondomix chose to equip the machine with an Allen-Bradley double Servo Motor to create both movements. The Servo Motors are tted on both ends of the spray beam that provide fast movement synchronously and with utmost precision.

Additional Information
www.rockwellautomation.com
The results mentioned above are specic to Haas-Mondomix's use of Rockwell Automation products and services in conjunction with other products. Specic results may vary for other customers.

Listen. Think. Solve., Allen-Bradley, RSLogix, ControlLogix and Kinetix are trademarks of Rockwell Automation, Inc. Trademarks not belonging to Rockwell Automation are property of their respective companies.

Publication OEM-AP121A-EN-P January 2010 Expiry date: January 2012

Copyright 2010 Rockwell Automation, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the UK.