Set Panners and Automatic Arranging

Why Do You Need Tray Arranging?

An encrusting machine can make thousands of products an hour, dropping them one by one from the outlet onto a conveyor. Whether they're then steamed, baked, frozen, or packaged, products usually have to be neatly arranged on trays or spaced at fixed intervals on a conveyor. If that's done by hand, one person standing at the outlet constantly picking up, arranging, and swapping trays quickly becomes the most tiring and slowest position on the line; and frequent hand contact with products also increases hygiene risk.

The job of a set panner (also called a panner) is to automatically arrange formed products onto baking trays, steaming trays, or the next conveyor according to set row and column spacing. RHEON's Japanese website lists the set panner (セットパンナー) among peripheral equipment for its encrusting machines, describing it as a machine that "automatically arranges formed products"; Rheon USA's KN551 product page likewise lists a Set Panner and a Rack Loader for automatic tray loading.

How Does a Set Panner Work?

Common approaches include:

• Conveyor placement type: Formed products travel along a conveyor, and when they're above the tray, the front end of the conveyor retracts or lifts to "place" the products onto the tray; once a row is done, the tray advances one position for the next row.
• Lateral movement type: The outlet or conveyor moves side to side so products are arranged in multiple rows on the tray.
• Row spacing adjustment: Paired with a spacing conveyor, row spacing can be narrowed or widened to fit the tray size. RHEON also offers peripherals such as a width-narrowing conveyor (幅狭めコンベヤー) for narrowing row spacing.

Trays arranged by the set panner are then placed on carts by hand or by an automatic rack loader and sent to the proofer, steam cabinet, or blast freezer.

Which Machines Can a Set Panner Connect To?

Set panners most often follow:

• Encrusting machines: buns, filled pastries, mooncakes, mochi, croquettes, sesame balls, and other filled products.
• Portioning and cutting machines: portioned filling balls or dough balls that need to be arranged on trays for the oven or freezer.
• Forming conveyors: products arranged on trays after secondary forming such as flattening or stamping.

Downstream may be a proofer, steam cabinet, oven, freezer, or packaging line. When choosing, work backward from what kind of tray and arrangement the downstream equipment needs.

What to Confirm When Buying

1. Tray size and material: Whether your factory's existing baking and steaming trays can be used, or whether you'll need new trays.
2. Arrangement: How many rows and columns per tray, what spacing, and whether staggered arrangement is needed.
3. Speed matching: Arranging speed must be equal to or greater than upstream forming speed, or products will pile up on the conveyor and bump into each other, deforming.
4. Product characteristics: Products that are too soft or sticky deform easily during placement or stick to the conveyor, sometimes requiring dusting or a different belt material.
5. Adjustments when changing products: When different products require different spacing and tray types, whether settings are easy to change and whether parts need replacing.
6. Cleaning: Whether conveyors and contact surfaces can be removed and washed; see Conveyor Belt Maintenance and Replacement.

When Should You Buy One?

You can do the math: how many people and how many hours a day tray arranging takes now, and how many more people you'll need as output grows; then compare that with the investment and maintenance cost of a set panner. Generally, once the forming machine can produce continuously and steadily and manual tray arranging becomes the bottleneck, it's time to evaluate a set panner. While output is still small and products change frequently, the flexibility of manual arranging is actually better.

FAQ

Q: What is a set panner?
A: Equipment that automatically arranges formed products onto baking trays, steaming trays, or conveyors according to set rows and columns, usually following an encrusting machine.

Q: Can a set panner connect to encrusting machines from other brands?
A: In principle, yes, but outlet height, speed, and signal interlocking must all be coordinated. See Production Line Integration: Can Machines from Different Brands Be Linked?

Q: My product is very soft and deforms during arranging. What should I do?
A: Adjust the placement height and conveyor speed, or improve it with dusting or a different belt material.

Q: Does Dong-Yih have set panners?
A: For Dong-Yih Machinery's models and peripheral pairings, call us at 06-257-4644 or ask on the Contact page.