Clean, durable, and maintenance-free

In addition to convenient cleaning, the top priority for food production machinery is ruggedness. Highly aggressive cleaning agents and large amounts of water are used to prevent pathogens from developing. These must not have a long-term impact on machine availability. Self-lubricating polymer plain bearings that reliably stand up to any adversity over the long-term are proving themselves in this aggressive environment.

"We are almost exclusively active in special purpose machinery building", explains Simone Singer from the sales and marketing operation of Singer & Sohn GmbH in Berching, Upper Palatinate. "And our proximity to the bratwurst metropolis Nuremberg has had the effect that our machines are frequently used in sausage and meat production. We see ourselves as problem solvers for our customers, who generally need to automate production processes with customized plants, in part to meet strict hygiene guidelines over the long term. “

Dieter Koller, Head of Design Engineering, explains: "Our machinery product range is characterized by its particularly high reliability, long service life, and ruggedness. This is particularly important in food processing applications, since these are frequently operated by unskilled workers on the one hand, while their service lives must be acceptable on the other. The market is highly competitive. Unnecessary maintenance and service downtime must be avoided at all costs. “

Hygienic cutting of sausage links
Founded in 1978 as a contract job-shop, today's focus of the family-run company with its roughly 38 highly qualified employees is on the design and fabrication of conveyor plants and special-purpose machinery that is primarily used in the food processing and beverage industry, but is occasionally also found in chemical and pharmaceutical applications. "No detail is too small for us. Ranging from a simple conveyor belt to highly complex machinery – we plan, fabricate, deliver and install cost-effective plants that have by now proven their performance capability throughout the world", explains Dieter Koller. "We are a one-stop shop, including service. " Ranging from conveyor lines for pastries and baked goods, scales, cutting plants, automatic production plants for processed meat or brush plants for salami sticks: they all involve customer specific products that are completely fabricated from stainless steel. "The material guarantees long-term and hygienic operation", explains Simone Singer. "Accordingly, all machinery elements must be compatible with this. “

The custom machinery builder has now exhibited a sausage link cutting machine, 'OptiCUT SI-1000', at Anuga FoodTec, where the machine generated considerable interest. "This design was the result of a customer inquiry, who in part wanted to significantly reduce manual labor in his production for hygiene reasons. " Whereas in the past, employees manually cut the sausage links from below with a type of razor blade, this is now accomplished with a machine. Although employees were naturally required to wear protective suits, it was unavoidable that they touched the food while performing this work, therefore risking contamination. Moreover, the manual process continuously resulted in different sausage link lengths, which caused variability in the visual impression. "And in today's world, food retailers are no longer able to communicate this effectively to their customer base", the Head of Design Engineering raises another aspect.

"The cutting operation is now accomplished fully automatically", explains Dieter Koller. A camera system optically recognizes the pinch locations and arranges the knife positioning, and therefore the accurate cutting of the sausage links. The output is currently at seven smoking trays (= triple edge aluminium rods) with 26 sausage pairs each per minute. "Our short-term objective is ten smoking trays", the Head of Design is quick to add. " The stainless steel plant can be used for a wide range of sausage types such as wieners, knockwurst in natural skins, fried or raw sausages. In connection with the material, it also meets all applicable requirements for cleaning and hygiene. "And because of the automatic cutting process, all sausages now have a uniform length for the packaging process."

Food production without external lubricants
The operating principle of the machine is straightforward. An operator removes the smoking trays with the sausage links from the boiler or smoking cart and feeds them into the sausage link cutting machine for automatic processing by the plant. The sausages are secured, spread, and respectively cut from below in the machines interior. The smoking trays exit from the opposite side of the plant and can then again be retrieved by an operator or are automatically fed to the next production process with add-on conveyor technology.