Estudo do sistema de alimentação de matéria-prima em uma indústria de fórmulas infantis e suplementos em pó

Abstract

With population growth and modernization of society, the food industry has adapted to ever-increasing and personalized demands. One of the segments that characterize this modernization is powdered supplements, created to provide a desired combination of nutrients in a single product. In this scenario, one of the most popular branches of powdered compounds are infant formulas, designed to complement or replace breastfeeding. Infant formulas are a synthetic version of breast milk, so vitamins, carbohydrates and proteins are combined for proper nutrition of the child. In this context, an industry of formulas and powdered supplements made a change in the raw material supply system in order to increase production efficiency and maintain competitiveness in the market. In this change, a new silo with greater capacity was installed, making it possible to supply the equipment with larger bags, speeding up production. In this way, this work consists of a case study in which parameters such as pressure, flow and velocity were evaluated, and a comparison of scenarios was carried out in the supply of a source of carbohydrates. In addition, concepts such as flow factor were used to evaluate the feeding system. Finally, it was concluded that with the permanence of structural characteristics in both silos, only the vertical pressure changed. However, gains in process quality were discussed, due to the minimization of human interference, as well as optimization of the workers' routine and increased operational efficiency, due to the increase in the raw material buffer.