Juice Blending/Batching system consisting of a PLC and HMI.

SUMMARY:  

Designed, developed and installed an automated juice blending and batching system. The system consists of two batch tanks where dry ingredients are dissolved in water, six storage/blending tanks to where the batches are pumped, with additional water and sugar added. During the packaging process, the liquids are pumped through proprietary blending systems with the final product being sent through HTST presses and on to bottling lines.

DESCRIPTION:  

Blending consists of batching fixed quantities of water to a choice of two small blending tanks. Using an Operator Interface Terminal, the operator selects the destination tank, the volume of water, and the temperature of the batch. The system automatically dispenses the correct amount of water and heats the tank to the correct temperature. 

At then end of the blending, the operator selects one of six storage/blend silos. Because the tanks share piping, the system determines the correct path, avoiding cross contamination, and pumps the batch to storage. 

Once in storage, the operator may add additional water and/or sugar. Both are batched by volume, with a choice of three sugar sources. Again, because of shared piping, the system must insure that there is no cross contamination. 

The package operation requires the PLC system to reliably interface to a proprietary blending system. The PLC controls the stop/start of the entire system, including the valve nests that send the product to the HTST and then on to the fillers.