Standalone Lamb Chine Bone Saw Australian Sales and Marketing Demonstration and Commercialisation Unit

Summary

​It has been proposed that the concept that underpins the chine module (developed as part of the Scott fully automated LEAP IV middle machine) could have the ability to be designed and configured as a standalone unit. A preliminary investigation by Greenleaf Enterprises shows that there is significant benefit achievable above and beyond current industry chine removal methods.

As a result Scott and MLA have proposed this project to develop a prototype standalone chine removal machine (based on the chine module concept) and to demonstration this machine at various processor sites within Australia as a series of 1 month trials to evaluate if the measured benefits relate to a one-off single processor or whether the current design can achieve the same benefit when installed (albeit for a short period of a month) in a variety of Australian processing facilities.

In this project the design, build and testing of a prototype standalone Lamb Chine Bone Saw (LCBS) has proven successful. Production trials of this machine as a demonstration unit have been completed at four trial/demonstration sites with trials lasting 1 month at each site sequentially. The trials evaluated the new design configuration to ensure it met all required Australian processing weight ranges and yield requirements.
Feedback from all four sites was overwhelmingly positive with demonstrated superior safety, yield, product presentation, throughput and sawdust reduction over current semi-automated machines and manual processes.

Yield analysis confirmed the benefits that had been predicted were in fact significant and it was also found that as the chine machine returns a one piece chine and feather that this could become a saleable commodity as opposed to traditional methods that return this product to waste.

Some minor opportunities to improve the LCBS have been identified and resolutions are either already being implemented or are planned to be implemented with future machine builds. At each trial site, management and operational staff have expressed interest in the automated lamb processing systems offered by Scott Automation and Robotics either as a standalone chine machine or with further development as a chine plus flap and/or scribe machine.

It is concluded that trailing of this kind of equipment has significant benefit to processors in evaluating solutions for adoptionp.psh