Trade Electric Gets ABI Cooking

The art of baking is truly all in the timing and in ensuring every step is executed perfectly. No one knows this better than ABI Ltd, a progressive, innovative food processing equipment manufacturer. They are a specialized machine manufacturer in the food industry -- specifically baked goods, so when they came to Trade Electric looking to improve their design and reduce cost, our team was truly able to "rise" to the occasion.

ABI Ltd. has successful equipment installations in Canada, U.S.A., Europe, Australia and the Caribbean and is a leading designer and manufacturer in their industry. Part of their business model is to provide their customers with innovative equipment solutions that are user friendly and remarkably cost effective and they requested Trade Electric's help to ensure they live up to that promise.

ABI Ltd. was looking to lower the cost of their automated baking machines. Coming up with a solution to control multiple drives simultaneously that would not affect the production process was no simple task. Combining the efforts of Trade Electric's team, including Dominic Caccamo, Account Manager, Romeo Ramos, Drives and MCC Specialist and Nick Bumbaca, PLC/HMI Engagement Manager with ABI Ltd.'s Design Engineer, Jean-Marc Fauteux, they found a way to redesign the existing equipment with modern, efficient components that complimented the machinery already in place.

The machine they were particularly concerned about consisted of a multiple conveyor system that moved simultaneously. The original design ABI was using consisted of several different parts just to make one Drive communicate to the conveyors. There were several Drives and Conveyors involved so the cost of additional parts really added up. The newly proposed system eliminated these peripheral devices and enabled the drives to communicate with the conveyors directly using a simple PLC. They did this by using one communication card and daisy chaining the Drives using a pre-existing serial port found on each drive. The end result was 37% savings to the customer - a change that ABI was quite pleased with.

ABI Ltd. sells their equipment to end users like Weston Bakeries, Maple Leaf Foods and more, so a decrease in waste combined with a better priced solution left everyone involved quite satisfied with the result. Now they can not only help their customers eat their cake, but bake it efficiently too!