Digital services
DryingPro improves the drying process for food and animal feed. It measures, analyzes and adjusts your production process in real-time to boost yields and cut waste.
01-08-2019
Today’s margins in food and feed processing are tight. So the smallest percentage gain in your production process can make a big difference.
Getting the right moisture content in your product is one way to quickly achieve these gains. If you don’t dry your food or feed enough there’s too much moisture and the risk of contamination from mold. Over drying wastes energy and increases waste, using more raw materials for each bag produced.
So how can you get the right balance?
We’ve created DryingPro, part of our ThermalSuite range of digital services for drying.
“We have moved beyond the machine”, Paul McKeithan, Head of Bühler Digital Services explains. “ Now we can share our many years of process knowledge as well.”
DryingPro is a mix of machine, digital technology and powerful algorithms based on years of our process expertise.
A stream of discharging product passes through a chute, where a sensor collects data about moisture and temperature. This data is constantly sent to our IoT platform, Bühler Insights, which analyzes it, suggests insights and adjusts your dryer’s heat setting – all automatically. This constant sampling and adjustment is what makes the production process more efficient. “We have been able to control drying machines for years. We’ve also been experts in understanding the drying process.” Paul McKeithan, Head of Bühler Digital Services explains.
“Now with DryingPro we can now add digitalization to make even more of your drying process.” You can set moisture content targets by hand or through your recipe control. The dryer then automatically maintains these settings for the rest of the production run. DryingPro also stores data, so you can look back and report which products were produced and how – which is great for transparency and traceability.
DryingPro constantly monitors the drying process. This is very different from traditional manual sampling, where you can only check your food or feed products intermittently.
You can also watch all of this online on your phone, tablet or control room computer. So you can check and control what’s happening to your process in real-time - including verification of the kill step. All this makes a drying process more efficient.
It improves the product quality and yield. It can also reduce waste, carbon emissions, water use and energy.
Save energy by understanding how much you’re using and how to improve performance. Reduce waste by knowing trouble spots and new areas of value. Increase yield by learning how to increase production.
Paul McKeithan, Head of Bühler Digital Services explains:
“DryingPro helps to produce a product that is closer to your target product moisture. It helps to increase yields and save costs. In fact, we estimate that you can save about US$200,000 per year per % of moisture. We also work very closely with you, so you can be confident in reaching your target. We have always advised about how to set up a drying process. Now we work together throughout your production cycle. Now we are true processing partners.”
What’s exciting about DryingPro is that we can now mix our expertise in machinery, processes and machine learning - to make processes even more efficient in real-time.
Our Bühler Insights platform helps you to make better decisions in real-time. This is a true game changer.
Paul McKeithan, Head of Bühler Digital Services
DryingPro's sensor measures temperature and moisture levels in your product.
DryingPro's sensor measures temperature and moisture levels in your product.
Gupfenstrasse 5
Uzwil
9240
Switzerland
