Fully automatic

In today’s high throughput, fast food environment, increasing the speed of customer service is a popular demand. Adding automation to the cooking process can eliminate potential manual errors, allow end users to create a ‘one-touch’ solution for setting cooking parameters and improve or maintain cooking consistency, and ultimately reduce production time and improve customer satisfaction.

Steel belt technology, such as that offered by Belt Technologies Europe, is key to manufacturing and improving automated food production systems. For example, a new automated commercial grill system, within which the precise positioning of two cooking platens is critical, relies upon the steel belts. Through their precise movement, the belts help tonsure that a programmable and repeatable distance is set between the two platens.

Steel drive tapes were chosen above cables and inclined planes for this application, largely due to their proven success in precision positioning applications and their availability in stainless steel to suit the hygiene requirements of the food preparation industry. In addition, the steel belts are of low mass and perform well without any lubrication. They are also highly durable and – in this application – provide near zero backlash, no stretch and offer high positioning repeatability.

The design of the grill system incorporates the use of the steel drive tape, attached to both the upper cooking plates and a drive pulley. A single button on the operator control panel activates the drive assemblies, moving the upper cooking plates to precisely the required position. As a result, the automated cooking system is providing consistent and predictable cooking performance.

Before implementation, the grill system was tested to determine reliability. After three million cycles it demonstrated no sign of fracture after review by an independent metallurgist. In continual operation there has been no evidence of measurable stretch after repeated use and no change in the structure of the tape since installation.