Bakery Automation Software

Bakery Automation Software offers a cost effective means of scaling a bakery whilst enhancing quality, consistency and efficiency. RFID Automated Baking can simultaneously de-skill your baking processes whilst providing full auditability of those same processes.

Bakery Automation Software – Control Baking using RFID

Any manufactured item is made by following a set of steps, and baked goods are no exception to this rule.

Each product you bake will have a series of steps that you perform, in a specific order, for a specified amount of time. Furthermore these steps are normally performed in a specified place in your facilities.

Steps Involved in Making a Baked Product

An example of your baking processes individual steps might be:

  • Manufacture (Mixing and Portioning)
  • Rising
  • Baking
  • Cooling
  • Packaging
  • Distribution

The processes will likely differ, in terms of the individual steps and their duration, between every different product that you bake. Using our software you simply model each baked good that you make. The system can then ensure that each batch of each product is processed according to your requirements.

This example shows the steps required to manufacture a chocolate coated meringue bar at Flower and White modelled in our software.

rfid automate manufacturing process steps

Time Critical Baking Steps

Some of these steps will be time critical for the product, baking being the primary example here.

A failure to adhere to the required time window for one of these steps will damage the product, affecting quality and consistency. This may ultimately lead to increased wastage.

What if the Baking Step isn’t time critical?

Some of your steps to manufacture finished baked goods will be significantly less time critical than baking. However, even non time critical steps like cooling can have an impact on your bakeries efficiency and throughput.

A Growing Bakery: Quality, Control and Auditability

As all bakeries grow the importance of tracking individual batches of baked goods through the various steps involved in their manufacturing grows. Our Bakery automation software offers batch  level control of production timings. This offers the following benefits:

  • Consistency. Optimising the time spent in critical stages of production enhances product consistency and quality.
  • Efficiency. Optimising the speed at which product is moved through the manufacturing process optimises resource utilisation.
  • Scalability. An automated system can deskill production by guiding operators through the manufacturing process in real time.
  • Auditability. A full record of the time spent in each part of the manufacturing process.
  • Quality. The metrics above are the core for any set of quality certifications for manufacturing.

Our bakery automation software can model what you wish to happen, and for how long, to each of your different products.

How do we go about the process of automating the tracking of each individual batch of each product to ensure that those processes are followed accurately?

RFID – Tracking The Racks

So what is RFID, and how can it help you to automate your bakery?

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is a means of identifying assets at various locations by putting a cheap ‘RFID Tag’ onto each asset.

RFID Tags

The RFID tag does not require batteries or connection to a power supply. It is entirely self contained. Tags can be very cheap, or more robust and designed to last for the life of an asset in a manufacturing environment.

For use in a bakery, a tag has to be manufactured to be capable of withstanding the heat of your ovens. A rugged heat proof RFID tag, capable of being affixed to your bakery racks and withstanding your ovens temperature, is about 40mm long, costs typically between£10 – £20 and looks like this:

Xerafy RFID Tag manufacturing automation

Each of your oven racks are identified with an RFID tag, which is permanently affixed to the top of the rack. Each RFID tag has a unique number assigned to it at manufacture. This number thus uniquely identifies each of your racks wherever the RFID tag is seen.

RFID Antennas

RFID Antennas are fitted to the ceiling at key locations within the bakery. Typical locations are doorways between different processing areas and outside specialised equipment, such as ovens. Modelling the locations of the antennas required for your bakery and it’s sites and processes is part of your implementation of our RFID Bakery Automation Software.

zebra rfid antenna manufacturing automation

When an RFID Tag passes within range of an RFID antenna, typically underneath or close to underneath it, the antenna powers the tag up, and the two communicate to each other. Since we know where the antenna is located, we know that your bakery rack is now in that location.

Each antenna is connected to an RFID receiver, which provides the antenna with power and communicates the data of which tag was seen by which antenna and of course when it was seen back to our software.

RFID Receivers

The Pinesoft RFID bakery automation software uses Zebra RFID receivers and antennas. These Zebra receivers communicate the movements of the RFID tags past the antennas back to our servers. Those servers then manage the automation of the baking and the persistence of the individual batch data.

Each receiver is connected to your local network. It is powered by power over ethernet (POE) or a local power supply. It can handle up to 8 individual aerials which can be up to 9 metres away from the receiver.

rfid manufacturing automation zebra reader bakery automation software

The Model and The Control

Our bakery automation software allows you to model the steps involved in making any of your baked goods. The RFID equipment and tags track each of your bakery racks as they enter your bakeries’ different production areas.

Applying your model to each batch generates the operational efficiencies. Storing all of the individual batch data gives you audit and reporting capabilities to extract further benefit for your bakery

Example – A Real Automated Bakery

Let’s see how the bakery automation software deskills the job of baking your products. For this example we are going to use Flower and White, who manufacture a range of delicious low calorie snacks based on meringue.

Model Your Baked Goods

Our software is highly flexible and will allow you to model each product that you bake. The steps to make a product are a ‘Process’

Our example automated manufacturing business here is Flower and White, and their products are Meringues. The Processes below cover the manufacturing variations required to bake them.

bakery automation software rfid automated manufacturing processes

The bakery may create as many processes as they require. Access to create and edit processes is restricted to administrative users.

Bakery Automation Software – Model the Steps

Each process consists of a number of Steps.

Each batch of product is automatically driven through the baking process by the steps. Operators are prompted when it is time to move product from one stage to the next.

Each batch of product has its progress through each step persisted for audit, quality and reporting purposes.

These are the steps required to bake an F&W Meringue Bar, a chocolate coated low calorie snack bar.

bakery automation software rfid process steps

Set Each Step’s Timing

The baking step for the Meringue bar is time critical. The start of this step is driven by an RFID reader seeing the tag attached to the rack at the entrance to the Location (or set of locations) which are identified as ‘Ovens’. This will happen automatically as the baker wheels the rack into an oven from the production area, there is no need to scan barcodes or any other manual intervention.

We cannot fit antennas into ovens, so they are fitted outside the oven by necessity. ‘Persist location after seconds’ is used to allow the bakery rack to be seen by many oven antennas, yet assign the rack to the correct oven. The baker can wheel the rack past many ovens, and their RFID Antenna, before he locates an oven with space at the right temperature. Once the rack has been in the oven for 2 minutes (120 seconds) – its location will be saved as that oven.

RFID Automated manufacturing process step baking

Each Product may have a number of different Variations associated with it. Variations are used in this example to track different flavours of the same product, but could track any required attribute or set of attributes such as colour or size. If variations exist for a product then the specific variation that is being manufactured is prompted for at the point of manufacture.

Manufacture a Batch of a Product

Select the Product

The baker selects the product that he is making from the Products that are available to be made at the site that he is working at from the operational dashboard. The baker is about to make some meringue bars.

rfid automated manufacture product

Select the Variations and the Rack

The baker is then:

  • Asked to select which variation is to be baked (if applicable to that product)
  • Made to choose the rack on which it will be baked. All those racks in the production area and not currently used in production are available for selection.
  • Clicks ‘Create’ to start the manufacturing process

rfid manufacturing product variations

This creates a new unique batch of that product, with the variations as chosen, associated with the bakery rack on which it was built.

Here we can see the freshly created batch of product.

RFID automate manufacture new batch

The rack, and its ID (the internal identifier of the RFID tag attached to the rack) are clearly visible as is its Location (Production), and the antenna that last saw it at that location (Production Oven).

Steps show all of the steps that have happened to that batch of product, and how long they took.

Process Steps (collapsed in the image above) shows the steps associated with that process, i.e. all the things that should happen to that batch, and how long they should take.

Baking – Next Steps

Once the manufacture of the batch of product is finished, the baker will take the rack from the production area into a different area. That might be a proving room or it might be into an oven depending on the nature of your baked goods.

Baking is our next Step

The freshly manufactured batch of product knows what its next step is supposed to be. The manufacturing process is modelled for all of your products.

bakery automation software next steps

The new batch of product is in the Production Area , and in the initial step, called Production.

The next Step in its production is Baking, which is handled in the location called Ovens.

As the baker moves the rack of meringue from the production area and finds a space for it in an oven, the RFID tag on top of the bakery rack is automatically sensed by the antenna mounted outside that oven.

This movement of the rack through the bakery automatically finishes the last step, and starts the next step – Baking. It set’s the location to the correct oven, making the rack easy to find when baking is finished.

The Remaining Steps in Manufacturing

As the batch of product on the rack is moved through the steps required to manufacture it, the appropriate steps are started and finished. All of the timings and location data associated with the movement of the batch of product are also stored by the automated bakery software.

bakery automation software rfid manufacturing automation batch steps

When the final step in the baking process is finished, the batch is moved into an archive area automatically. It is no longer visible on the operational dashboard once archived.

Power of RFID in Bakery Automation Software

All of the data shown above has been acquired automatically, just by the normal movement of the rack around the bakery. This illustrates the power of RFID automation in your bakery.

Operational Dashboard

Now that we have shown the basics of how to model your products and your bakery business, let’s see how this works as a baker in the bakery.

The operational dashboard is visible to all users of the system:

  • Managers gain visibility of live product being baked
  • Bakers are guided through the processes required of each batch of baked goods

Live batches by Status

rfid automated manufacturing dashboard

Bakery Operational Efficiency

The operational dashboard helps bakers to move product through the baking process efficiently, whilst simultaneously de-skilling the job of baking.

  • Problem batches are highlighted in red and are always at the top of the dashboard. Problem batches have overstayed their maximum time in their current process step (and that step has critical timing turned on). They should not be there!
  • Action batches are highlighted in yellow and displayed below the problem batches. They are over their minimum time for that process step, yet not over the maximum time. These are prompts for the operators to move them to the next step.
  • Batches displayed in green at the bottom are the remaining batches that are in the bakery. The bakery automation software knows that no action is required of them at this present time.

The most immediate benefits of implementing bakery automation software comes from the operational dashboard. That dashboard immediately offers to any bakery the following:

  • High visibility of the baking processes
  • Increased quality and consistency through better control of the timing of the steps involved in the baking processes
  • Enhanced scalability of the business by deskilling the baking process
  • Enhanced operational efficiency by minimising resource utilisation

Additional Dashboard Capabilities

In addition to the active driving of batch process requirements to the operators bakery automation software dashboard offers the following capabilities.

RFID Reader Status visibility

Bakers are given access to the last read state of each aerial attached to each RFID reader. This allows for easy identification of any network, power or other connectivity problems that might affect the operations. Once a bakery adopts bakery automation software it’s important to maintain high availability of the hardware required to run the software.

rfid reader status display

As each bakery is different both in terms of products and bakery layout, the regularity of tag and aerial read events will differ from bakery to bakery.

Our bakery automation solution allows the individual manufacturing business to configure the durations that constitute warnings of possibly broken equipment. Here those settings are 1 and 5 minutes respectively between tag reads.

RFID Reader status settings control

Location Searching

The batches of product present at any Location Group or specific Location can be searched from the dashboard at any time.

RFID manufacturing location search

Here 4 batches are present in Oven 4 – representing 100% occupancy. None of those batches are ready for the next step in their processing at this time.

Investigation of Any Batch

Any batch visible anywhere in the operational dashboard may be investigated in the dashboard. Here we show the Batch details pane. This is populated with the batch being inspected. The bakery automation software has populated a complete audit trail of all of the processing of that batch of product.

rfid dashboard batch inspection

Bakery Automation Software – Flexibility

Our bakery automation software is highly configurable and very flexible.

This means that you have the power to manage and customise the operation of the software according to your needs and preferences; essentially, you are in charge of how the software operates and what it does, not the other way around. This is modern software that does not require costly and time-consuming programming to adapt to business change. It can be changed to fit new requirements – in minutes – to adapt to the changing requirements of your evolving business.

Bakery Automation – Data and Reporting

Live and Archived Batches

Bakers have visibility over live batches. A live batch is currently in production, and is actively tracked by the RFID antenna and the tag attached to its trolley. Live batches are stored in a fashion designed to be fast and efficient. Once the last step in any batch is entered the batch is archived.

Archive Data

Once a batch is finished, which is when it enters the location associated with its last step (typically a storage or cleaning location or similar), it is removed from the live data set and placed into the archive data set. Archive data is stored keyed on the manufacturing date, which allows for efficient reporting across large amounts of data.

Once a batch of product is finished the Bakery rack associated with it is released to be used for the baking of more products. The finished batch still knows about its rack, but the rack is free to be associated with, and to automate the baking of, another batch.

Export Data

All finished data is available to be exported to third party reporting systems. This data export may be configured to be by push or pull, and utilises JSON web API’s. Complex reports and analytics may be generated which can have access to all archive data from the system. The Smart Manufacturing Data Hub, have developed a suite of reporting tools to allow you to analyse and interpret the data generated by this bakery automation data acquisition platform.

Management Reporting

The bakery manufacturing data generated by this solution is highly valuable. The immediate benefits of implementing this solution are concerned with compliance data and operational efficiencies. The secondary benefits come from analysis of the generated data, and are concerned with resource utilisation, process efficiencies and other potential cost savings.

This data captures in essence the time spent at each step of manufacturing for every batch of product baked at each of your sites for all of your baking processes. The resources associated with those processes are also captured and persisted for each part of each process.

Model Your Working Week

In order to make the analysis of data easier, and the output of reports more readable, you model your working week so that resources are only reported on when they are relevant. Your bakery automation software only captures data while you bake – why would you want to report on it when you are not baking?

rfid automated manufacturing model working week

Resource Utilisation Reporting

Whilst it is anticipated that most data analysis will be performed using external tools, resource utilisation reporting is offered directly from our solution. Resource Utilisation reporting takes a period, a resource and a granularity (no. of minutes between report intervals).

rfid automation usage report criteria

The resource utilisation reporting is charted natively within the app. Only the working week specified by you is reported upon in the charts and output data.

The report below is from the criteria above, and models oven usage in 10 minute segments over a 5 day working week .

rfid resource usage reporting chart

  • The chart itself can be printed or saved
  • The data points comprising the chart may be exported as csv for external analysis
  • The individual batch steps that underlie the data displayed in the chart may also be exported for external analysis

Batch Searching

The Batch data generated by the bakery automation software can be searched at any time, from live or archive data.

rfid batch search criteria

Results are filtered to match the selected criteria.

rfid automation search results

  • Any individual batch may be examined directly from the result set in the application
  • The entire result set may be exported for external analysis

Batch Finder

Any individual batch of baked product may be found and viewed by Batch ID at any time.

rfid automation find batch

Bakery Automation Software – Conclusions

As a bakery owner you may have many drivers to implement an automation solution to your bakery:

  • You may want operational efficiencies
  • You may be looking to make your business more scalable
  • You may seek to make the business less dependant upon key employees, perhaps yourself
  • You may want insights into data you do not currently have from your business

Our Bakery automation software can help you to achieve all of these benefits, and more, with minimal disruption or expenditure. There may even be matched grant funding available from government bodies to achieve these process enhancements.

To see whether your existing bakery business processes could be automated effectively with our RFID bakery automation solution, please contact us using the form below.

Government Matched Funding

Our bakery automated manufacturing solution may well be eligible for government backed matched funding. This can significantly reduce the cost of implementing what is already a very cost effective solution which offers rapid ROI. Funding is available to eligible companies who work with the Smart Manufacturing Data Hub (SMDH). SMDH have also developed a suite of analytical tools designed to maximise the value of the data generated by this solution.

I’d like to know more about RFID Automation of my bakery please

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