VACUUM CONVEYING SYSTEM INTEGRAL TO 2000% GROWTH STRATEGY OF FOOD ADDITIVES SUPPLIER
Automated material handling, including vacuum conveyor system, is the key to Piasa reaching twenty-fold growth, equaling the production capacity of all major competitors combined.

Case History

 PDF Version

Have Questions? Contact our customer service department at 1-800-VAC-U-MAX

 

Need a Quote? Fill out our online application form and cutomer service representative will contact you shortly.

Vacuum Conveying System with Bulk Bag Unloader to a a large capacity hopper

One reason why lean manufacturing techniques are the order of the day is that it has become increasingly difficult to use low-cost labor as a principal means of gaining a competitive advantage. New production strategies that incorporate automation and process integration are turning out products ranging from simple components to complex systems with levels of precision and productivity that no amount of cheap human labor can match.

At Piasa, a producer of food additives in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, a comprehensive plan to automate and continuously update processes that were previously performed by human efforts will increase the company’s output by 20 times its previous capacity.

“Making dramatic changes was vital to our future and competing with the major players,” explains Ricardo Madrigal, a Vice President who manages Piasa’s engineering and R&D. “To give an example, with the limitations of our human-assisted blending process it used to take 20 minutes to blend 1.5 tons of a product such as a seasoning. Now that same output can be completed in 20 seconds. That’s a 60-fold improvement that comes from automating the process.”

”When you consider that Piasa uses over a thousand different ingredients to produce food additives such as spices, seasonings and flavors – many of which are custom recipes – the importance of dramatically improving production becomes quite evident. Competing with established industry giants including McCormick Seasonings and Griffith Laboratories, eight-year-old Piasa’s new automated operation will provide it with the combined production capacity of McCormick, Griffith and other Mexico-based competitors.

Piasa, which derived its name from Proveedores deIngenieria Alimentaria, S.A.(“Suppliers of Food Engineering, Inc.”) is a100% Mexican corporation that produces mainly blended ingredients that are used throughout the food industry. Specializing in spices, marinades, sauces, seasonings and other additives, with emphasis on the snack food, poultry and meat markets, Piasais aiming to become a major player throughout North and Central America, Europe and Asia.

Automation and process integration are part of a dramatic expansion plan that has led to Piasa recently relocating production to an entirely new plant that is 20 times the size of the previous one. Outfitted with the latest equipment and processes, the new facilities will accommodate Piasa’s growth far into the future.

One of the systems that will enable Piasa’s aggressive plan is a pneumatic conveying system that dramatically steps up process throughput and eliminates the need for cumbersome human intervention. Provided by VAC-U-MAX, a Belleville, NJ-based leader in the pneumatic conveying industry, the new system was custom designed to meet Piasa’s new production system and future operations as well.

Installed in September 2003, the new VAC-U-MAX system includes a Bulk Bag Unloader, a Large Capacity Vacuum Receiver and a Positive Displacement Vacuum Pump Package. The material is conveyed from the bulk bag unloader to the vacuum receiver and then discharged into the blender. From the blender the material is stored into Bulk Bags using a VAC-U-MAX Bulk Bag Loading Station. The Bulk Bags are then stored in warehouse and where they are eventually used in conjunction with a separate VAC-U-MAX Convey System to load filling machine for packaging the final product. All of which is done with much greater speed and safety that by the previous manual system.

Equipment used for demonstration at VAC-U-MAX Test Lab

“Material handling is an integral part of our process operations,” explains Madrigal. “The new VAC-U-MAX system will give us the capacity and the flexibility we need to achieve our very energetic growth strategy. For example, we can use a VAC-U-MAX dump station to feed ingredients to the blenders for smaller and many normal size orders. But for high volume products, such as snack-food coatings and flour, we can pneumatically load the blenders directly from silos at an even greater rate of speed. Considering the efficiency of our new blending systems, this gives us vastly improved production capacity.

Mr. Madrigal requested a proposal from VAC-U-MAX after a week long tour of vendors across the U.S. He says VAC-U-MAX offered Piasa unique flexibility to adapt its pneumatic conveying system in order to optimize output. Ben Samuel, a VAC-U-MAX sales engineer, studied the original Piasa production facilities in Monterrey to determine how the system should be tailored to meet present and future needs. One of the few suppliers who routinely designs and builds custom pneumatic conveying solutions, VAC-U-MAX has large-scale testing facilities at its New Jersey headquarters where tests were performed to confirm material flowability and the required convey rate for the Piasa application. Samples of materials typically used by Piasa were transferred from a bulk bag unloader to a vacuum receiver on load cells.

Safety was another important benefit of Piasa’s new pneumatic conveying system. The high-volume, automated flow of ingredients into blender will obviate the need of workers having to climb ladders to load heavy bags into the system. Both the dump station and silo loading system will eliminate the use of small paper and vinyl bags containing ingredients, bags that used to endup scattered on the production floor, thus providing a cleaner production environment. This elimination of bags will not only promote safety, but will also have an environmental impact, notes Madrigal, since wood and plastic used to make the bags will no longer be consumed.

“Our new pneumatic conveying system and relationship with VAC-U-MAX reflects a highly-developed business strategy that we can implement in a smooth and organized manner,” Madrigal says. “Through the improved conveying capabilities and removal of human labor we will be able to pass significant savings along to our customers, there by making us more competitive in the markets we seek to serve. Our major competitors are attempting to achieve savings by improving their warehousing and distribution systems. However, we feel that lowering our production costs, and thereby our product costs, will be much more effective. Of course, we also have a very dependable distribution system.”

Madrigal adds that Piasa places a high value on people and jobs, and feels confident that jobs will be added in the long run. “I believe that our new operations and resulting expanded business will enable us to provide more jobs in R&D, marketing and sales,” he explains. “Our industry is becoming increasingly important to the food industry, and ultimately depends on people as well as an expended product line and improved process integration.”

VAC-U-MAX offers an array of pneumatic conveying systems that are widely used throughout the food, pharmaceutical, chemical and other industries. Available worldwide, systems include Dilute and Dense Phase Vacuum Convey Systems, Dense Phase Positive Convey Systems, Batch Weighing, Multi-Ingredient Handling Systems, Direct Charge Blender Loading Systems, Aero-Mechanical Conveyors, Flexible Screw Conveyors, Industrial Vacuum Cleaners and Central Vacuum Cleaning Systems. VAC-U-MAX is also UL Certified Builder of Control Panels and PLC Control Panels. All programming is done in house.

For more information about VAC-U-MAX material handling or industrial vacuum cleaning solutions, contact VAC-U-MAX by mail at 37Rutgers Street, Belleville, NJ 07109; telephone(800) 822-8629 or (973) 759-4600; E-mail:info@vac-u-max.com.

ABOUT PIASA:
Piasa is a major developer, manufacturer, and vendor of a large variety of spices, seasonings, blends, mixes, flavors, and similar products that meet the highest quality standards for raw materials and processes prevailing in the world food industry. Piasa’s major objective is to simplify the operation of food manufacturers by customization of products according to customer needs with well-balanced flavor, aroma, additives, micro-biological content, and other ingredients; so they can in turn supply quality and flavorful food. For more information, contact Piasa at: Platón Sánchez 2026 Norte, Col. Terminal C.P. 64580, Monterrey, NL, Mexico; Phone: 52 (8) 374-6528,375-7582 or 374-5354; Fax 0052 (8) 374-5339;E-mail: piasa1@infosel.net.mx; or visit the website www.piasa.com.