Vaissi’s temperature control helps to focus on the essentials
Vaissi is a Finnish family-owned company that makes first-class cabbage rolls by hand. The largest manufacturer of rolls in the Nordic countries spins a whopping 12 million rolls a year worldwide.
We digitised Vaissi’s product control process to make the most of important working hours.
“Digitised temperature control saves valuable craft hours where they are needed most.”
Vaissi is a pioneer in digitalisation for our food industry customers, as they have been involved in digital self-monitoring since Nokeval’s first monitoring devices. Over the years, devices have evolved and wired loggers have changed into automatic logging.
Today, Vaissi’s measurements are automatically logged into a self-monitoring system, where the results can be easily found and viewed afterwards.
Flexible monitoring throughout the process
A measurement system has been built for Vaissi that meets the needs of the manufacturing process and storage. Raw material temperatures are controlled at Vaissi at all stages of the process to ensure the first-class quality of the final product.
“Digitalisation of the production temperature control has considerably improved the time management and transparency of production.”
A cabbage roll’s monitoring journey all the way from raw material to a ready-for-dispatch product involves the reception of raw material, rice boiling, rolling, baking, cooling and packing. The process contains several measurement points, and they require a variety of solutions to ensure the quality of the measuring technique data as well as to ensure usability.
Baking control is a critical step
In terms of product homogeneity, the baking stage is critical, because, in addition to the correct degree of maturity, the product has to have even surface colour. Product control monitors both the product’s internal temperature and baking time. The temperatures are checked on a regular basis, and they are automatically logged directly into the control system. At the same time, the notes on any potentially required additional baking times are also prepared.
“With the help of the entries made on the system, it is also easy to return to the events at a later time. This improves predictability and helps to develop quality.”
The temperature data and the additional baking time entries are extremely useful when evaluating product properties and monitoring the operation of ovens. With the help of this constantly accumulating log, it is possible to predict maintenance needs and pay attention to the variability of organic raw materials.
Off-the-shelf device tailored to the required needs cost-efficiently
At the baking stage, Vaissi’s challenge was to find a suitable measuring device due to the baking procedure of the product. The requirement for the device was that it should be suitable for oven measurements and match the dimensions of the ovens.
The starting point for the planning of digitalisation was Nokeval’s range of off-the-shelf products. Our range included a hand-held Sense measuring device that seemed suitable for Vaissi’s purposes, which Vaissi put to test use. However, the tests soon showed that the off-the-self device’s spike sensor was too short for oven measurements and therefore not suited to the purpose.
We had a quick impromptu meeting with our sales and product development teams on the adaptability of the device. Our customers often have extremely specific measurement needs, and Vaissi’s need for a special sensor shape is a very typical off-the-shelf product development project for us. During our meeting, it was found that the modification is quite easy, and we ended up developing for Vaissi a completely own measuring device for the baking stage of the rolls.
With an easy product modification, a device was completed that meets the need and ensures the smoothness of measurements throughout the process. With the help of a unified digital control process, Vaissi can focus on cabbage and the first-class quality of the products made from cabbage.
