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Automatic loading with IPL Robot has improved product presentation and hygiene.

Trondheim, Norway’s first capital city, boasts a proud Viking history of Chieftains and their finest of men who built the city’s agriculture, fishing and forestry to provide prosperity and excellent living standards. Those high standards live on at Grilstad, a private company managed by the seventh generation of the Jenssen family with the same pride and dedication to quality established by their ancestors in 1790.

Today, the company has 8 factories located in mid and Southern Norway employing some 700 people operating 20 lines to produce salami, burgers, fresh meat and air dried ham. Cooked meat and ham production is also being planned for the future.

Thanks to high quality and an enviable reputation, the company supplies around 50% of the salami consumed in Norway and their other products enjoy equal, if not greater, success in the home market.

To cope with increasing demand, the Trondheim plant has been extended no fewer than 24 times since 1957 and now operates 6 slicing lines that produce 65 tonnes every week.
In 2010 Grilstad installed a Marel IBS2000 Vision bacon line in their Gjovik plant, the success of which inspired Head Of Technical Development, Georg Mattingsdal, to look at how Marel could help reduce high labour costs and improve profitability at his Trondheim plant.

PolyLine in action at Grilstad, increasing output, reducing costs and improving profitability.

Georg was attracted to the idea of applying robot technology to automate the slicing and packing operation and, safe in the knowledge that Marel are without doubt, market leaders in intelligent portion loading, he carefully researched and subsequently ordered, a PolyLine comprising PolySlicer 3000, G2300 Checkweigher, VBS Vertical Buffer, Pack Desynchroniser and a triple head IPL Robot.

The new line was installed in October 2010 with an engineer appointed to oversee and optimise the performance of the system. The PolySlicer 3000 high speed slicer automatically loads and slices up to 4 logs of high quality salami at a time. The sliced groups are then dynamically weighed by the G2300 Checkweigher which is connected in closed loop feedback with the PolySlicer in order to maintain on-weights in excess of 98%. After the checkweigher a VBS Vertical Buffer System is programmed to buffer a certain percentage of the sliced groups so that they can be released into the product flow when the PolySlicer is being reloaded. This delivers a more consistent flow of product to the IPL Robot and thermoformer and, in turn, achieves higher throughput. Georg says the VBS plays a valuable role in the line with its compact footprint and substantial contribution to higher throughputs.

The IPL Robot is equipped with 3 heads which share the work of loading the sliced groups into the thermoformer at, typically, 180 picks/min.

Improved presentation

“As well as greatly improving output and productivity, PolyLine has made a big difference to the quality, presentation and consumer appeal of our products.”

Georg Mattingsdal,
Head of Technical Development.

PolyLine produces both shingled packs and overlapped shingle packs which, Georg says, have been welcomed by customers who have commented on the improved presentation of the product. IPL Robot has a great deal to do with this because it can place the sliced groups in the pack more quickly, more gently and more precisely than any operator and the relatively few transfer points on the PolyLine also contribute to maintaining good presentation and hygiene – a vital safety issue with ready to eat products.

Georg is very pleased with the PolyLine, commenting that it has made a big difference to the output, quality and presentation of Grilstad’s products and Trondheim’s profitability. He is also pleased about being able to manage the system on line and, in partnership with Marel, he looks forward to even higher levels of efficiency and productivity in the future.

It’s so reassuring to see Grilstad entering a new era and an eighth generation of excellence!