Noodles for the 21st century

HUMAN migration and the opening of the Chinese market have made noodles an indisputably widespread and popular food all over the Far East. They are one of the most consumed foods in Asia, from China to Korea, from Japan to Thailand, from Malaysia to Indonesia. The demand for noodles is now becoming significant also in Western countries. The words "pasta" and "noodles" are sometimes used as synonyms, but these two products are quite different, not only in the raw materials used (durum wheat semolina for pasta versus soft wheat flour for noodles) but also in their manufacturing process. Oriental noodles are traditionally made from dough made from a mixture of wheat flour, water and salt. In recent years, however, noodles have been proposed in numerous variants depending on the target market and on the preferences of the consumers. On the market we can find noodles made from wheat, rice, potato or buckwheat, either dried or fried, and they can be prepared and seasoned in various ways. Noodles shaped in bundles Pavan Group (Italy) has recently built and installed for a major multinational customer an oriental noodles manufacturing line with a capacity of 1500kg per hour. The line produces dry, precooked noodles shaped in bundles having a single weight of 67.5g. The packaging system has also been customised according to the client requirements: the square folded bundles are stacked and packed compactly in 400g bags. The process includes mixing, lamination, cooking cutting, drying in cups, cooling and packaging of the finished product. The innovative point of Pavan solution is the entire automation of all processing stages: the traditional manual noodle-making process has been automated maintaining the sensorial characteristics of the handmade product. Integrated automation To meet customer needs Pavan choose a Siemens motion control system based on SINAMICS S120. Well known in the industry market and appreciated for its versatility, SINAMICS S120 represents the ideal drive for many applications: it can be used in standalone mode (AC / AC) for decentralised or single- axis applications or in a book-size version (AC / DC) for centralised configurations where it is important to manage energy recovery from the motors. Pavan was looking for a system that had a high degree of integration of automation hardware and software not only to optimise both programming and assembling time, but also to have a single platform to manage and maintain. TIA (Totally Integrated Automation) Siemens concept is based on Drive, PLC and HMI platform integration with diagnosis capabilities at different levels: from the PLC software to communication network status down to drive diagnosis and configuration.

A fully automated line for bundled noodles is designed for productivity

With high production capacity and huge masses and dimensions, the error margins on Pavan noodles and pasta line were reduced to almost zero. The full line consists of various processing stations: each processing step must be synchronised with the others with absolute precision. To assure integrated automation, Pavan chose to use Siemens 1FK7 servomotors connected via Drive- CLiQ to SINAMICS S120. The digital communication bus enables motor nameplate self-reading. This feature avoids assembly or replacement errors: motors model and serial number can be automatically identified preventing operator errors on site during production phase. The dynamic skills of last generation Siemens drive overcome some well-known limitations of previous technologies and make possible new concepts of mechanical applications. In the food sector, this means an increase in productivity and reduction of line down time. Thanks to Siemens PLC S7 300 T until the mechanical line configuration is now independent fadidas