Posted to News on 13th Feb 2024, 11:15
High performance food portioning made safe
When Belgian food slicing machine builder Marelec wanted to ensure that its machines were not only highly productive but also safe, it turned to Pilz Automation Technology for an appropriate safety concept, implemented to the highest safety Performance Level PL e.
Marelec develops machinery for portioning processes, in which meat or fish is sliced into portions of an exact, specified weight. These machines from the Portio' series have a minimum of 17 cutting movements per second. Safety is the priority for Marelec because, as efficient as they are, the current machines do represent a very high injury risk.
The razor-sharp blades on the portion cutters represent the greatest risk; they are barely visible due to the fast cutting movement. That's why Pilz advised the machine builder to use a protective cover including safety fence monitoring. If the cover is opened, the non-contact, PSENcode coded safety switch ensures that the knife is immediately shut down.
The safety sensors have IP69K certification and are resistant to corrosive cleaning agents ideal for use in the food industry. Integrated short circuit diagnostics offer safety up to PL e.
The safe configurable PNOZmulti 2 small controller is used to control the safety functions. If the PLC controller performs a restart, PNOZmulti 2 checks that all the safety conditions have been met. Equipped like this, nothing stands in the way of safe portioning.
Roland Verleene, who works in the technology division at Marelec Food Technologies, comments: This way we can guarantee that we only place machinery on the market that meets the highest performance and safety requirements. Where safety is concerned we always use Pilz as our partner. It's a successful partnership from our perspective.
