UK firm Aja said an update to its Opus 'e' Manual Checkscale software comes with a WiFi link, allowing the automatic "minimum or "e" weight to be be communicated throughout a production network.
The manual portion weighing of such products as soft fruit, produce, ready meals, salads, dips, retail packs sandwiches, wraps and pizza is a major part of the UK fresh food industry, the company stated.
"Manual weighing offers flexibility, quick changeovers and in many cases is the only practical way to portion control and assemble complex and difficult to handle and sometimes delicate or very sticky ingredients and raw material," Aja stated. "However hand weighing is inherently difficult to manage, with poor yields and very little on line operator control."
Aja claims its latest wireless scale network software allows ingredient control with minimal or zero give a.
Opus 'e' is a WiFi or Bluetooth wireless system, which removes the the need for cables and allows processors to be flexible in where they put scales and operators.
A new optimising average module adjusts in real time individual scale target weight tolerances up and down to ensure that the best net minimum weight or average weight is achieved across a production run, the company claimed.
Opus 'e' runs on the latest version of the Aja Yamato DP Checkscale or Takeaweigh Scale, the DP5502. The DP Checkscale is a manual checkweigher.
The company has also released a semi automatic multihead weigher for fresh meat suppliers and packers.
Fresh meat suppliers and packers for major retailers of fixed weight retail packs are constantly struggling to find ways of reducing and controlling give away with difficult to handle fresh and sticky meat products, the company stated in releasing the new weigher, the SDW "Optima".
The SDW Optima is semi automatic multihead weigher solves with the ability to sort automatically into fixed weight, fixed number batches, standard fresh meat cuts and sticky barbecue products. The machine weighs to an accuracy of 0.2 grams with a give away of between one to two per cent.
Multihead weighing is used for fixed weight fresh meat and poultry packaging. The machine allow the best combination of portions to the best weight, with the minimum give away of products such as fillets, steaks, chops or ribs, the company claimed.
The machine has 14 or 16 separate weigh heads, depending on the model. The SDW looks at all the combinations then decides which pieces to match.