Intelligent poultry batching with RoboBatcher and I-Cut

Poultry processors are always looking for optimal use of all incoming products, reducing give-away to a minimum. To support processors achieving this goal, Marel Poultry has developed “a robot with a knife”, an innovative concept for intelligent fixed-weight poultry batching.

It's about the interaction between the I-Cut 122 PortionCutter and the RoboBatcher Flex, cleverly deciding which fillet weights best match the order requirements. Instead of cutting all fillets to one ideal average, this concept focuses on assessing individual breast fillets and it only cuts what is really needed.

Daily decisions

The RoboBatcher Flex is Marel's most advanced fillet batching system, with utmost flexibility and minimized giveaway. The Marel I-Cut 122 PortionCutter has been designed for high-speed cutting of boneless, non-frozen poultry to fixed weight products.

Marel Poultry’s new, integrated solution assists processors in making their daily decisions. Full interaction between the I-Cut 122 and the RoboBatcher Flex opens up the world of selective cutting according to specific order requirements. The system is proactive and makes choices based on input, provided in real-time.

Cutting according to recipes

It all starts with the input given, the so called recipes. Each recipe defines one job, responding to a customer's order. Whenever a fillet enters the I-Cut 122, it is scanned and its weight is calculated. This information is sent to the RoboBatcher Flex, which decides what happens next, based on the recipes provided. If the fillet, as it is, complies with one of the three recipes, it will pass through without any cutting. Cutting only occurs if this is the only way for the fillet to fit into a recipe. In that case, the I-Cut 122 will portion the fillet to the required weight, leaving a valuable “offcut” piece to be utilized for nuggets or strips. The RoboBatcher Flex now finishes the job by accurately batching the different products.

The alliance between RoboBatcher and I-Cut creates the perfect balance between incoming flow and outgoing orders. This dynamic system reduces giveaway to an absolute minimum, while precise cutting ensures that processors achieve high product utilization with both fillets and offcuts as high value end products. This robot really does use its knife intelligently.

For more information, visit marel.com/robotwithknife.

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