In a departure from their day-to-day projects, Ashby's has been lucky enough to work with an expert from the food handling industry over the last year assisting with the design and construction of two large industrial baking ovens.  The latest project is a 21 metre long industrial band oven capable of producing hundreds of muesli or other snack bars every minute for a New Zealand client.  From the oven the bars pass through a refrigerated cooling unit then through a sorting chicane to straighten them in to a single row for the packaging machine.  Some photos of the construction process are below:

The infeed and oven under construction...

The oven cooler and custom outfeed conveyor...

The custom outfeed chicane to straighten the product to single file...

It's been a tight schedule and very exciting to see it come together so quickly and work so well. Because the the outfeed conveyors and chicane have been custom designed its been interesting to see the shop crew dump a few hundred muesli bars on the large conveyor belt and adjust belt speeds and components to get the bars to shoot out the far end of the chicane in single file.  After final installation we will try and get video of the process posted.

The client is very pleased and excited to see this oven commissioned in his factory to triple his production and Ashby's is pleased to have been a part of this project.  Next time you open a muesli bar remember the local talent that makes it all possible.