This customer produces cake mixes and pastries for the retail and bakery markets. Through many years of research, they have developed a manufacturing process based on an IBC batch system, using over 150 stainless steel or aluminum IBCs.
New cohesive products were proving more difficult to discharge and posing problems with the IBC system. Overcoming these problems included: manual intervention, machine downtime, possible product degradation, and contamination. These were unacceptable to the customer who needed to maintain their previous manufacturing assurance.
The existing IBCs were fitted with a square slide valve. ISL recommended removing these and fitting a 500mm diameter ISL Cone valve, actively encouraging flow from the IBC during its pulsing action. The discharge point was modified to incorporate the ISL transfer hopper, which feeds the product at a controlled rate into the conveyor that lifts the product to the packing machine. After initial tests with the standard ISL cone, a customized stainless-steel cone fitted with “knife-edge” vanes resulted in consistent discharge with no product degradation.
ISL solved the client’s problems by customizing an existing valve system ensuring flow from their containers. The cost was kept to a minimum since only minor modifications were needed. The client initially converted a limited number of containers for the problematic mixtures with future plans to convert all units to the ISL Cone Valve System.