Fosters Bakery – increased capacity and improved energy use

It is often a combination of factors that provides the real benefit of automation to a business.

For example, Fosters Bakery, based in Barnsley, UK, has automated an oven loading application.

The shelves in the reel oven move continuously through a vertical loop, making it impossible for an operator to unload a full tray of baked product and reload the same shelf with a new tray. Before automation the oven would operate at reduced capacity, as shelves would rotate without product.

A robot is now used to unload and reload trays within the available 2 second cycle time, so that the oven now operates at full capacity. Not only has the robot allowed Fosters to increase production capacity by 80%, but it has also provided an energy saving of 50%.