An analysis of capability in a bread making industry

Sammanfattning: In large scale industrial baking, problems with continuity are not uncommon and specification demands are used to keep produced units equal. Many factors may affect the bread making process including status of raw-material, temperatures in production area and the fermentation process. In this thesis, the production of hot dog buns has been investigated. Sweden’s largest producer of hot dog buns, Korvbrödsbagarn, detected variations in size among buns produced from the same production line. The aim of this thesis is to find what causes these variations and investigate the capability of the production line. This was done by measuring factors such as temperature, relative humidity, dough temperature, the fermentation process, oven temperatures etc. The measured parameters were compared to measurement of buns (height, length and width) produced and analysed with principal component analysis. The results were further analyzed with ANOVA and Tukey’s comparison. The result from this showed that 1.6 % of the produced buns reaches the set specifications. Most variations in measurements are in width of the buns. Weather changes and temperature drops affect the relative humidity within the bakery and that may cause some variations of the produced units. Furthermore, this investigation shows that the production line could be improved in proving chamber and ventilation to optimise the process. Increasing the dough weight of every bun leads to greater percentage of produced units within set specifications. By adjusting the specifications with ±1 mm in every dimension more buns would be approved.