"Vilniaus Duona" has completed a 0.5 million. packaging automation project worth EUR

Vilniaus Duona bakery in Vilnius has completed the packaging automation project of the most efficient toaster bread line. From now on, toasted bread is packed automatically – about 0.5 million euros have been invested in this solution. The payback of investments is planned within 4.5 years.

Frees from monotonous work

According to Dalia Zdanovičienė, the head of the Vilnius bakery, the main goal of the project was to improve working conditions and free employees from routine functions that require a lot of manual work.

 "Packing into boxes in a bakery is one of the most monotonous stages. Therefore, even before starting the project, we prepared some of the employees who worked there for work in other positions, on other production lines, and trained some of them to work with the new automatic device. We saved all our people who wanted to continue working in the bakery, not a single employee was fired due to packaging automation," said Dalia.

Until now, the stage of packing products into boxes required mainly manual labor. If there are 1-2 operators working on the line, then as many as five of them were needed for packaging. According to the bakery's manager, the entire manufacturing industry faces challenges in finding employees for lower-skilled jobs, so the decision to invest in an automatic packaging system was both practical and long-term.

A complex project in an existing bakery

Implementing the project in an already operating bakery was quite a challenge. The automated packaging unit (3 x 3.5 m) did not fit through any of the bakery doors, so the outer wall had to be temporarily dismantled.

"I was pleasantly surprised by the professionalism of the team "Toscano statyba": in the morning the wall was neatly dismantled, and in the afternoon it was already rebuilt, as if nothing had happened. Also, the work with the Danish equipment manufacturing company was coordinated precisely, down to the smallest detail, everything was done professionally, qualitatively and quickly," says D. Zdanovičienė.

Installed in two days

The packaging unit was brought from Denmark and installed within two days. At that time, we had to stop one of the most productive toaster lines for a short time, but it was agreed in advance that our customers would not feel it and the store shelves would be provided with toasted bread. Other units of our group helped a lot here, and temporary manual packing equipment was built.

The idea of the automation project was born a few years ago, and over the past six months, the solution has been planned and implemented in detail.

"A huge thank you to my colleagues – especially Andrius Paužas and Audrius Lataitis, who coordinated the whole project from A to Z, communicated with the equipment manufacturer, coordinated and supervised work with external technical companies. I would also like to thank the entire production team – shift managers, production planner and employees, who quickly and professionally mastered working with the new device after the training. The project is complicated, but it was implemented very smoothly," said the bakery's manager.

Importantly, the system is also adapted to emergencies – you can return to manual packing mode if necessary.

Specialists from as many as 10 companies worked

In total, technicians and specialists from as many as ten companies and different countries worked simultaneously with the colleagues of Vilniaus Duona on the reconstruction of the toaster bread line, and we thank all of them for their work.

Retraining and Step-by-Step Automation

Dalia says that some of the former packers have acquired skills to work with an automatic packing device. They were trained by the manufacturer's specialists who came from Denmark.

"There were many firsts – we had to enter and coordinate hundreds of settings, adapt different recipes and different product weights. We started work at the beginning of December, and today we are "getting started" little by little. Most importantly, employees understood that automation is not a threat to being left without a job – but an opportunity to learn how to operate complex devices and improve."

Also installed an automatic bin wash

This is not the first automation project at the Vilnius bakery. Previously, an automatic box wash was installed here, in which about 100 thousand euros were invested. euros. It ensures that about 90 thousand kg of bread, all production would be loaded into washed, clean boxes.

Recently, flour hoppers have also been renovated in the bakery, the furnace network and the air circulation system of the lifting cabinet have been replaced, and product weight control devices have been built.

"We consistently invest in automation – for work safety, ergonomics and efficiency. We want our people to do more interesting, meaningful jobs. We are most happy when young people who have gone to work elsewhere, perhaps in search of a better, more interesting job, come back. This is a sign that we are on the right path," said Dalia Zdanovičienė, the head of the bakery.