Level Sensors Simplify Inventory for Food Processors

Level Sensors Simplify Inventory for Food Processors
24 Jan 2025  |
Food and beverage processors need to measure ingredient levels in storage and process silos, mixers, and batching tanks, or on conveyors and in pipelines. To ensure food quality, level sensors must comply with FSMA food safety and meet hygienic, CIP or clean-in-place requirements to reduce the risk of contamination and prevent out-of-spec batches.

From brewing to baby food, and solids to slurries, BinMaster has solutions for inventory monitoring and flow detection to optimize uptime and supply chain management.

Inventory management from procurement to processed

Raw Material Cost Control

Food processors use storage tanks and silos for a wide variety of raw materials. From grains, to solids, and liquids, improving yields and preventing waste are essential to profitability.

Level Measurement in Process Vessels

Fast, continuous, reliable level measurement in processing tanks ensures product quality, proper batch control, and optimizing output. Simple sensor sanitation saves time and labor.

Promote Product Consistency

Use automation for precise ingredient measurement to ensure product integrity and taste. Radar sensors are precise ensuring high repeatability to ensure quality compliance and quality control.

Simplify Purchasing & Reporting

Track inventory over time with continuous level updates and schedule automated reports. Use vendor-managed inventory to engage suppliers in the replenishment process.

Four ways level sensors help food processors

Ingredient Management

Measure levels of raw ingredients such as grains, sugar, and liquids in storage tanks and silos. Helps maintain inventory control, prevent overflows, and ensures a continuous supply of ingredients for production.

Process Control

Ensure that each ingredient is used in the correct proportions during mixing and blending. Monitor levels of solids, liquids, slurries, and flavorings to ensure batching in the right proportions.

Packing or Filling Lines

Level control of tanks and containers dispensing product during the packaging process. Prevents overfilling or underfilling, which can lead to product waste and plant sanitation issues.

Waste Management

Monitor waste tanks and effluent treatment systems to ensure they do not overflow and to efficiently manage waste product disposal. Maintain hygiene and meet environmental regulations.

BinMaster sensors and software optimize your supply chain

Real-time Monitoring: Level sensors provide continuous, real-time data on stock levels, enabling timely replenishment and reducing the risk of stockouts or overstocking.

Accurate Data: Cloud inventory software integrates with current level sensor data, for real-time reporting, streamlined order processing, and enhanced supply chain efficiency.

Cost Reduction: By optimizing inventory levels through precise monitoring, processors can reduce holding costs, minimize waste, and improve cash flow management.

Demand Forecasting: Advanced analytics from inventory software, supported by sensor data, enable more accurate demand forecasting, leading to better production planning and resource allocation.

Ingredient inventory management makes processors more efficient and profitable

Volatile Markets: Efficient inventory management helps food processors hedge prices by allowing bulk purchasing during low prices, reducing costs, and mitigating price volatility.

Product Shortages: Shutting down production lines is costly. Demand forecasting helps prevent ingredient shortages by projecting days until empty so you can maintain optimal stock levels.

Financial Reporting: Raw ingredient inventory reports aid the finance department by providing accurate data for cost analysis, budget forecasting, and financial statements.

Five applications for level sensors in food processing

Storage Silos

Sensors measure the level of solids or liquids in a silo, bin, or tank. The amount of material on hand is calculated using the size of the storage vessel, the distance to the material, and the bulk density.

Batching Tanks

Liquid and dry ingredients are added, blended, or heated in make-up or batch tanks. Precision batching is critical to product quality, consistency, and customer satisfaction.

Mixers

The mixing process combines two or more ingredients to produce a consistent mixture that can be replicated time after time. Mixing involves liquid and powder, liquid and solid, or watery liquid and oils.

Conveyors

Sensors can detect the presence, absence, or level of material on a conveyor. They are used in the sorting, cooking, seasoning, cooling, and packaging steps of food production.

Pipelines

Sanitary piping is an essential transporting component for liquids and solids in the food industry. Flow sensors detect the flow or absence of raw to finished product in a pipeline.

Automated assistance during food production

BinMaster’s food processing solutions help you manage inventory from raw material storage in bins outside the plant to small processing vessels inside the plant. Measure any powder, solid, liquid, or slurry, whether of any bulk density, specific gravity, or dielectric constant with confidence.

BinMaster solutions provide better inventory data with more automation and less labor. Inventory is available anywhere, anytime, to plant workers, managers, purchasing, and finance departments with one login for every material, vessel, and plant.

What processing problems do level sensors solve?

  • Powders, solids, liquids, and slurries each behave differently
  • Material caking or build-up prevents flow from the vessel
  • Vessels not emptying or discharging completely
  • Process downtime caused by shortages of key ingredients
  • Flow interruptions in sticky or hard-to-handle materials
  • Excessive rework caused by improper batching
  • Not enough system capacity causing processing delays
  • Loss of inventory control that leads to spoilage

How will BinCloud inventory software help my operation?

  • Oversight of the supply, storage, and accessibility of ingredients
  • Accurate forecasting to optimize the supply chain
  • Ensure optimal stock levels, reduce waste, and improve efficiency
  • Timely supply, controlling costs, and fulfilling orders fast
  • Meeting customer demand while maintaining freshness

Software used in food processing

BinCloud App

BinMaster level sensors and BinCloud software eliminate climbing ladders to measure silos, bins, and tanks. Get all your inventory info in one convenient report accessed from a phone, tablet, or PC.

BinView

Cloud inventory management of raw ingredients, WIP, and finished goods at multiple plant locations across a wide geography with a single login.

Binventory

Binventory controller software with its graphical display and inventory history is for food processors that want inventory served and stored in a local network versus the cloud.

NCR-86

BinMaster NCR-86 is THE radar for solids or liquids. Measure bins, tanks, and silos with continuous level updates. NCR-86 works indoors, outdoors, in high dust, noise, condensation, or steam.

CNCR

Compact non-contact radar level sensors measure liquids, solids, or slurries in vessels up to 26, 49, or 98 feet tall. Use them in smaller bins, tanks, or silos or other processing vessels.

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Processing operations that struggle with the challenges of inventory management and timely replenishment of all types of solids and powders can monitor silo levels on their smartphone, tablet, or desktop with complete solutions from BinMaster....

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