Flowmeter helps dairy manage its costs
July 1st 2006

Four Krohne Optimass Coriolis mass flowmeters have been installed at Fredericks dairies to enable the company to control manufacturing costs more accurately.

The instruments are used to measure the amount of chocolate applied to icecreams on four production lines that operate 24h/day, five days per week during the summer. Chocolate is the most expensive ingredient used in the manufacturing process and controlling the amount applied to each icecream is essential to managing and minimising costs.

Chocolate is fed from storage tanks and pre-heated to 45C before passing through the straighttube optimass flowmeters at a rate of 10l/min and at a viscosity less than 2pa. Each Optimass is of hygienic design and some incorporate a stainless steel hot water jacket to help maintain the chocolate at a temperature that will prevent it from solidifying.

The Optimass flowmeters are capable of measuring to an accuracy of 0.1% of actual measured flow rate and now provide Fredericks Dairies with significantly greater accuracy than it could previously achieve.

Operators can take regular measurement readings from the flowmeters over a pre-determined period of time. These are then compared with the total amount of chocolate purchased to help identify under- or over-dosing of chocolate. If necessary, corrections can then be made to manufacturing processes to ensure that the correct amount of chocolate is applied.

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