food, coffee and pasta

Since the postwar period, the so-called “Mediterranean diet” has become increasingly a worldwide synonymous of a proper diet, healthy and extremely pleasant. For the record, the inventor of the “Mediterranean diet” is the American nutritionist Ancel Keys, (the famous “K ration” comes from his name). Mr. Keys lived long in Italy studying and demonstrating the virtues of food made of olive oil, vegetables and fruits but especially cereal complexes, key components of pasta and bread. The virtues of these foods are in raw materials and that these virtues to best express itself requires proper and careful management of these raw materials and the several processes that determine the well-known result. The Brambati Group has been capable to recreate the process in the recent plant built in the United States, where high technology is used to make the best quality of such precious. The plant, which develops in a very large surface, consists of 3 operational areas: first, the tower silos, the second area is the production and then there is the area of packaging and grinding. Combining the factory requirements, the technical specifications dictated by the client and the traditional know how, Brambati has developed and supplied a plant with the latest technology in the world with regard to the integration of networks and the simplicity of management. To execute and control all operations of the entire system is very easy; alarm control, flow of production, hardware diagnostic, software maintenance, management of recipes (because every type of pasta requires specific mixtures of flour to enhance the quality), reporting, documentation and production batches, are handy and accessible by the operators. As for reporting, Brambati thought to the traceability of raw materials and the increasing need of all producers.Every step of semolina is recorded on computer hard disk and stored in a database that makes it possible to trace the origin and path of transformation done by the product. The plant handles the entire production process, starting with the unloading from rail cars or as alternative trucks and then loaded in 8 silos (capacity of 110 tons each) through pneumatic conveying suction and compression. Before being stored, the flour undergoes a sort of refining through sieves, filters and metal detector, is then subjected to “check of acceptability” composed by a series of physical-chemical tests performed by the technicians of the laboratories to verify their suitability and quality. In this way met the high standards required by the customer, which are the basis of product quality. Once stored, the quality of flour are thoroughly mixed (on the basis of inputs determined by the recipe) and sent to production. At the base of the silos are the groups of mixing, with distributors and screws that dose semolina and sent pneumatically to 3 production lines with capacities that reach over 5000 kg/h (as been already agreed the extension to the fourth line). Finally there is the recovery of the pasta with the regrinding section. The engineering Brambati solved effectively the considerable complexity of this project, starting from the distance between the loading station wagon from the top of the tower silos and the area of mixing to the production and packaging. System includes also a variety of devices to be monitored, hundreds of motors, over 90 inverters, more than 100 electro valves, many soft starters, load cells, scales, levels, sensors, electrical controller for filter sleeves, fire protection systems and anti explosion, push bottom and other devices. All this takes place, as already mentioned, with a complete centralization of control and diagnostics. There are two locations identical: one in the control room (production area), the second in the tower silos area, through which the operator is able to maneuver and control the entire plant. Furthermore in the most remote areas of the packaging there are local management points to facilitate the maintenance. Included in the scope are two so calls “UFO” or portable consoles to be connected to a set of plug connections located throughout the plant for manual control of local utilities. A remote control of both software and hardware can be done directly from the Brambati office for prompt intervention in case of failure but also for regular operations audit or the help of our technician to the local operators. The teleassistance today is a basic tool on the relationship between supplier and customer, making even more effective and efficient assistance especially during the initial phase of operation. This required an advanced level of technology, networks and distributed architecture. A practical solution to the new industrial needs that require centralized controls for manufacturing synoptical with increasingly complex and articulated. But the most significant is the quality of the final product: a perfect synthesis of advanced systems to the traditional recipes of advanced technologies that meet and enhance the quality of raw materials to assert a leadership symbol of Made in Italy.