In the late 1890’s, William Hesketh Lever, the founder of Lever Bros., created Sunlight soap, which completely revolutionized the hygiene habits during the Victorian era in England. Even today, the company still adheres to its belief that success is defined by vitality, which is essential to the way it operates around the world, embracing “the highest standards of co-operative behavior towards employees, customers and the societies of the world in which we live.”
Production demands
To fulfill quality standards on its products, Unilever needs to consider the following aspects, among others:
— First, plants at which food is produced must be easy to keep clean so that the company can readily meet HACCP specifications.
— Second, Unilever must be able to guarantee all end users that its food products contain the exact net contents on the label and have the required high quality.
For this purpose, the quality and content of these products must be verified at the production line, and any overfilled products or packaging errors detected. To meet these requirements, Unilever needed a supplier who could accomplish these difficult tasks, and found that Sartorius was the right choice. Transforming requirements into viable solutions Sartorius as a supplier with special status was invited right from the start to participate in this important project. Unilever ultimately decided to install 22 Sartorius Combics scales. Twelve of these scales currently installed in the ice cream production area have a capacity of 3 kg and a readability of 0.1 g, and ten scales set up in the margarine production area have a capacity of 6 kg and a readability of 0.2 g. At every weighing workstation, a random sample is taken and weighed.
On this basis, a lot is checked to verify the net contents, or average weight, i.e., the net weight of the sample and its packaging characteristics. In the process, the weighing equipment enables the operator to uniquely identify the product, machine and lot numbers for complete traceability of the sample. The equipment registers the weight and alerts the operator if it is under or over the nominal value. To complete the quality assurance cycle, Unilever acquired the Sartorius ProControl for Windows® software for monitoring prepackaged products and for ideal evaluation of the weighing data. The system is flexible and permits retrieval of statistics reports for a certain date, lot or even a special machine from the various weighing workstations.
In addition, Unilever has meanwhile been using two Sartorius metal detectors along with the software to connect to ProControl. Sartorius offers a wide array of products and services covering the food production process. The company provides individual consultation to also design and engineer customised solutions exactly tailored to the customer’s individual application needs. Process optimisation is one of the major drivers of innovation at Sartorius so that food producers can make their processes safer, more reliable and more efficient. This is where Sartorius excels in transforming its process experience and expertise besides its advanced technological capabilities into viable solutions.
Conclusion
The complete Sartorius solution is a highly useful tool for quality management, enabling all lots and packaging suppliers to be checked. The scales and indicators available in stainless steel and painted steel with high IP protection fulfill the customer’s specific needs for hygienic design. Thus, Sartorius enables Unilever not only to save time and money, but also to offer its customers high safety standards and reliability. Unilever’s engineer and project manager Wesley Mendoza is very satisfied with the Sartorius solution and with its wide range of products offered. His comments are exceptionally complimentary and confirm that Sartorius provides the right approach.
Applications
Unilever in Mexico continuously looks for ways to raise the bar even higher with respect to quality assurance. This year, Sartorius with its Combics Food and Sartorius ProControl for Windows® attained Unilever’s increased standards.