The Scoop on Protecting an Ice Cream Manufacturing facility Cool

Working in an ice cream manufacturing unit is a dream for anybody who enjoys the frozen dessert. For management techniques engineer
Patryk Borkowski, a job on the greatest ice cream firm on the planet can be a good way to place his automation experience to make use of.

Borkowski works on the Superior Prototype and Engineering Centre of the multinational client items firm
Unilever. Unilever’s company umbrella covers such ice cream manufacturers as Ben & Jerry’s, Breyers, Good Humor, Magnum, and Partitions.

Borkowski maintains and updates tools on the innovation heart’s pilot plant at Colworth Science Park in Sharnbrook, England. The corporate’s meals scientists and engineers use this small-scale manufacturing unit to experiment with new ice cream formulations and novel manufacturing strategies.

The truth of the job may not precisely dwell as much as an ice cream lover’s dream. For security causes, consuming the product within the plant is prohibited.

“You’ll be able to’t simply put your mouth beneath the nozzle of an ice cream machine and fill your stomach,” he says.

For an engineer, although, the complicated chemistry and processing required to create ice cream merchandise make for fascinating problem-solving. A lot of Borkowski’s work entails bettering the environmental impression of ice cream manufacturing by slicing waste and decreasing the quantity of power wanted to maintain merchandise frozen.

And he loves engaged on a product that places a smile on the faces of shoppers. “Ice cream is a deeply indulgent and pleased product,” he says. “We love working to ship a superior style and a superior method to expertise ice cream.”

Ice Cream Innovation

Borkowski joined Unilever as a management techniques engineer in 2021. Whereas he’s not allowed to debate lots of the particulars of his analysis, he says one of many initiatives he has labored on is a modular manufacturing line that the corporate makes use of to develop new sorts of ice cream. The setup permits items of kit akin to sauce baths, nitrogen baths for shortly freezing layers, and chocolate deposition techniques to be seamlessly switched out and in in order that meals scientists can experiment and create new merchandise.

Ice cream is an interesting product to work on for an engineer, Borkowski says, as a result of it’s inherently unstable. “Ice cream doesn’t need to be frozen; it just about needs to be melted on the ground,” he says. “We’re making an attempt to bend the chemistry to bind all of the substances right into a semistable combination that offers you that nice style and feeling on the tongue.”

Making Manufacturing Extra Sustainable

Serving to design new merchandise is only one a part of Borkowski’s job. Unilever is concentrating on sustainability throughout the corporate, so slicing waste and bettering power effectivity are key. He not too long ago helped develop a testing rig to simulate freezer doorways being repeatedly opened and closed in retailers. This helped acquire temperature information that was used to design new freezers that run at larger temperatures to avoid wasting electrical energy.

In 2022, he was briefly transferred to one among Unilever’s ice cream factories in Hellendoorn, Netherlands, to uncover inefficiencies within the manufacturing course of. He constructed a system that collected and collated operational information from all of the manufacturing unit’s machines to establish the causes of stoppages and waste.

“There’s a deep satisfaction in understanding the machines that we’ve programmed make one thing that individuals purchase and luxuriate in.”

It wasn’t straightforward. A few of the machines have been older and not supported by their producers. Additionally, they ran legacy code written in Dutch—a language Borkowski doesn’t communicate.

Borkowski ended up reverse-engineering the machines to determine their working techniques, then reprogrammed them to speak with the brand new data-collection system. Now the data-collection system will be simply tailored to work at any Unilever manufacturing unit.

Discovering a Love for Know-how

As a toddler rising up in Stargard, Poland, Borkowski says there was little to point that he would turn into an engineer. At college, he beloved writing, drawing, and studying new languages. He imagined himself having a profession within the inventive industries.

However within the late Nineteen Nineties, his mother and father bought a second-hand pc and a modem. He shortly found on-line communities for know-how lovers and commenced studying about programming.

Due to his rising fascination with know-how, at 16, Borkowski opted to attend a technical highschool, pursuing a technical diploma in electronics and studying about elements, soldering, and meeting language. In 2011, he enrolled on the
West Pomeranian College of Know-how in Szczecin, Poland, the place he earned a bachelor’s diploma in automation and robotics.

When he graduated in 2015, there have been few alternatives in Poland to place his expertise to make use of, so he moved to London. There, Borkowski initially labored odd jobs in warehouses and manufacturing amenities. After a quick stint as an digital technician assembling ultrasonic scanners, he joined bakery firm
Brioche Pasquier in Milton Keynes, England, as an automation engineer.

This was an thrilling transfer, Borkowski says, as a result of he was lastly doing management engineering, the self-discipline he’d all the time wished to pursue. A part of his duties concerned every day upkeep, however he additionally joined a staff constructing new manufacturing traces from the bottom up, linking collectively equipment akin to mixers, industrial ovens, coolers, and packaging models. They programmed the machines so all of them labored collectively seamlessly with out human intervention.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, new initiatives went on maintain and work slowed down, Borkowski says. There gave the impression to be little alternative to advance his profession at Brioche Pasquier, so he utilized for the management techniques job at Unilever.

“After I was briefed on the work, they advised me it was all R&D and each undertaking was totally different,” he says. “I assumed that seemed like a problem.”

The Significance of a Theoretical Basis

Management engineers require a broad palette of expertise in each electronics and programming, Borkowski says. A few of these will be realized on the job, he says, however a level in topics like automation or robotics gives an necessary theoretical basis.

The largest piece of recommendation he has for fledgling management engineers is to remain calm, which he admits will be tough when a supervisor is pressuring you to shortly get a line again as much as keep away from manufacturing delays.

“Typically it’s higher to step away and provides your self a couple of minutes to assume earlier than you do something,” he says. Speeding can usually lead to errors that trigger extra issues in the long term.

Whereas working in manufacturing can generally be anxious, “There’s a deep satisfaction in understanding the machines that we’ve programmed make one thing that individuals purchase and luxuriate in,” Borkowski says.