Valley Growers: Enhancing Productivity through Automation

安大略省的萨德伯里是一个以从地下开采矿物而闻名的地方，但山谷种植者正在尽最大努力将另一种地下资源--土豆--放在地图上。追溯到19世纪，萨姆·兰维尔发现，在萨德伯里北部肥沃的沙质土壤中种植的土豆，是他吃过的最特别的土豆。从那时起，土豆已经成为萨德伯里的一种主要作物，山谷种植者也成为了该社区最重要的土豆农场之一。除了收获土豆，山谷种植者还生产自己的薯条。目前，他们每周生产3000多箱薯条，与这种美味的黄金产品相关的年销售额超过300万美元。山谷种植者面临的挑战是，他们没有一个自动化和直观的系统来衡量他们在油炸过程后冷却方法的有效性。因此，寒武纪学院提议在整个生产线上安装红外温度监测器，以评估薯条从油炸机和冷却单元立即出来时的温度。目前，炸薯条的温度是使用远程探测仪手动测量的，这减缓了生产周期，限制了效率。使用自动传感器，数据将被捕获到计算机中，山谷种植者随后可以仔细实时监控薯条的温度，以提高产量。

Sudbury, Ontario is a place renowned for pulling minerals out of the ground, but Valley Growers is doing its best to put anotherunderground resource, potatoes, on the map. Dating back to the 19th century, Sam Rainville discovered that potatoes grown inthe rich, sandy soil north of Sudbury produced some of the most exceptional potatoes hed ever eaten. Since then, potatoes havebecome a staple crop in Sudbury, and Valley Growers has become one of the communitys premier potato farms. In addition toharvesting potatoes, Valley Growers also produces its own French fries. Currently, they produce over 3,000 cases of fries perweek, and the annual sales associated to this tasty, golden product is more than $3-million.The challenge confronting Valley Growers is that they do not have an automated and intuitive system for gauging how effectivetheir cooling methods are after the deep frying process. As a result, Cambrian College is proposing the installation of infraredtemperature monitors across the production line in order to assess what the temperature is of the fries as they immediately comeout of the fryer and the cooling units. Currently, the temperature of the French Fries is taken manually using remote probesensors, which slows down the production cycle and limits efficiency. Using automated sensors, data will be captured into acomputer where Valley Growers can then carefully monitor the temperature of the French fries in real time in order to enhanceproduction.