Before Teeny Foods moved, it made sure its new manufacturing facility was updated with the latest automation controls. And after only three months on-line, the new facility has enabled Teeny Foods to more than double production rates of pocketbread (pita bread) while at the same time producing a more consistent product. With the new system, Teeny Foods now has the capacity to produce up to 20,000 pieces an hour - almost 3.5 times more than the old facility's capacity.

"We simply outgrew our old facility," said Rick Teeny, president of Teeny Foods, one of North America's leading makers of the Middle Eastern staple. "We needed more space, but we also wanted to improve our production process. Our goals were to reduce product imperfections, increase production, improve process control and reduce employees needed while still maintaining our high standard of quality. At the new plant, we added variable speed motor control and integrated the controls with OEM equipment so we could communicate one one network. This enable us to coordinate production throughout the plant. In the long run, the new system will reduce our cost per piece dramatically."

In order to meet its goals, Teeny Foods equipped its two autonomous production lines - sheeting and baking/cooling - with Allen-Bradley Bulletin 160 Smart Speed Controllers (SSC) to regulate the speed of AC motors on the production conveyors. The compact motor controllers provide Teeny Foods with variable speed control to help match recipe requirements, like more baking or cooling time - crucial for product formation and baking time. With over 200 different products, being able to reliably match requirements in all areas of production is extremely important to Teeny Foods' operation in Portland, Ore.

The sheeting line is used to take the product from raw bulk material to a sheeted product ready for baking. This line is responsible for product formulation - each recipe has a slightly different dough thickness and shape. Large chunks of bulk dough are manually transferred from the mixing station onto the sheeting line where it is converted into the specified thickness and width to meet specifications.

Accurate speed is critical in this section because if the dough isn't the right thickness, it will not bake correctly. The conveyors and process devices on the sheeting line are tied into a DeviceNet (network that allows Teeny Foods to monitor and control the line as well as communicate between devices). Allen-Bradley Bulletin 160 SSC controllers synchronize the speed of the conveyor and rollers for the appropriate dough thickness and weight before it reaches the cutting station towards the end of the line.

After the dough is cut, it is placed on specially designed trays to be proofed - allowing the dough to rise. Precise conveyor speed is important to synchronize transfer of the dough product from the conveyor onto the trays. If the speed is not coordinated, product gets dropped off the conveyor onto the floor. Precise conveyor control found in the Bulletin 160 SSC controllers reduces the amount of discarded dough product.
Once the bread is proofed according to recipe requirements, the dough trays are loaded onto the oven line and transferred off the proofing tray onto the oven conveyor.
Baking is the most important phase of Teeny Foods' production. In simple terms, without the proper baking time and temperature, Teeny Foods' Pocket Bread won't have a pocket and/or be undercooked or burned. The Bulletin 160 SSC controllers help Teeny Foods to regulate the speed at which the product passes through the oven improving quality while reducing product waste.

Another important concern on the baking line is the speed at which the product is transferred onto the oven line - this depends on the product. For example, pizza bread is larger than pocket bread products and requires a slower conveyor transfer speed. If a product is transferred onto the baking line at the wrong speed, the product will either stick to the tray or be transferred, unevenly spoiling the product.

The Bulletin 160 SSC controllers help manage the conveyor speed to meet product requirements and reduce product waste. This is especially important in the production of deep dish pizza crust which requires removing the bread from a circular baking pan. A vacuum pulls the deep dish pizza crust out of the circular pan and places the crust on one conveyor while the empty pan is taken away by another conveyor.

Teeny Foods' two-story spiral cooling rack made by New York state-based IJ White Company is controlled by an Allen-Bradley 1336 PLUS AC variable frequency drive which helps regulate the timing function on the spiral cooler by controlling conveyor speed. The spiral rack can hold up to 6,000 pieces of pocket breads at one time. Cooling time varies on the product, taking approximately 20 minutes to cool and 30 minutes to freeze a pocket bread from start to finish.

"We have products that need to be cooled or completely frozen," said Jum Georgioff, Engineering Manager at Teeny Foods. "If you've got a thermo mass going in, a certain amount of heat needs to be taken out. The 1336 PLUS drive acts as a timing function for the length of time it takes the product to go through the cooling rack and achieve the desired product temperature."

After having 34 Bulletin 160 SSC controllers up and running for about three months, Teeny Foods has seen a significant increase in production and has been producing a more consistent product. In fact, the company plans to upgrade its packaging line with additional Bulletin 160 SSC controllers in order to maintain speed control and network this line into the system.

The once small "mom and pop" bakery now has the capability to expand productivity and produce more consistent products, showing that an investment in tiny devices can help make lots of dough.