Case Study: Thurne-Middleby achieves higher bacon slicing accuracy and productivity with Rockwell Automation

Thurne Brings Home the Bacon Thanks to Advanced Vision

Thurne-Middleby, a food processing machine builder, needed a more accurate and efficient way to slice pre-cooked bacon. Older gravity-fed systems led to inconsistent slice thickness, overlapping product, and giveaway, so the company turned to Rockwell Automation and its advanced control and vision-based solution for the IBS 4600 Vision Slicer.

Rockwell Automation implemented an Allen-Bradley ControlLogix PAC, Kinetix 6000 servo drives, PowerFlex 40 drives, Flex I/O, safety relays, and a PanelView HMI to tightly coordinate the vision system, blade motion, and product feed. The result was a machine capable of producing 500,000 bacon slices per day, with lower cost of ownership, a payback period of less than a year, streamlined design and programming, and higher productivity.

Thurne-Middleby

John Kelsey

Product Specialist