M&R Packing is a large cherry-exporting facility in Lodi, California. Because of a two-and-a-half month harvesting season, M&R’s most pressing issues become time and accuracy. These issues become more compounded when process flow is not fluid and simple.

M&R recently added technology to increase process efficiency in regards to their time and accuracy restrictions. Frank Benitez, of Precision Weighing Systems, addressed these concerns and assisted with installation of forty-two of Cardinal Scale’s EB bench scales with 10 x 10 inch platforms and 30 lb. capacities, 190 indicators on some of the scales, and 225 indicators with special software programming on the other bench scales.

In operation, cherries are placed on a conveyor and moved to a packing box holding quantities of sixteen to twenty-four pounds or one to two pounds. With the larger boxes, Cardinal’s 225 indicator alerts a smaller conveyor with a closing hatch to slow down speed when reaching the box’s preset scale capacity. When capacity is reached, the hatch is shut and will not open until another box is placed under the closed hatch.

The conveyors feeding smaller containers are fitted with 190 indicators utilizing ColorZONE displays. The 190 indicators are preset with the desired weight and display a green light when correct weights have been reached in the packing container. This feature is a boon for workers whose second language is English or if production is running behind schedule and spending time reading numeric values is too time-consuming. Both of these technologies increase precision and time utilization, saving capital and effort.

In addition to these aforementioned benefits, the 225 indicator can drastically cut down change-over time. Change-over can last from fifteen to thirty minutes, but with its special programming capabilities, 225 weight indicator weight presets can be controlled from the facility’s computer system. Whenever a large-weight box size needs shipping weight adjustment, this is changed from their PC desktop automatically to another weight preset within the indicator—virtually eliminating change-over difficulties.