Existing fruit receiving and processing operations rely on both automated and manual data collection systems to generate and store fruit information. This information can be used to select fruit to use for a particular juice product or to optimize extraction systems. At the present time, the selection of fruit is mainly a manual process due to disconnected, dissimilar data systems and missing information.
This paper describes the development of an integrated bin management system. This system uses existing customer data collection systems with new machinery and instrumentation to improve the accuracy of fruit selection and blending to optimize the extraction process.
The following areas will be examined:
• A review of a conventional, manual bin system
• The need for an integrated data collection and selection system
• An overview of the intelligent bin system
• How the intelligent bin system collects and manages data
• An overview of the bin selection system
• Some future developments
Paper published with permission.
