Wrights Food opts for wireless sensor technology

The company’s £20M Crewe bakery complex produces more than 5M savoury products a week. Its bakery required a temperature monitoring system that offered flexibility and was able to provide a continuous record of temperatures to demonstrate due diligence.

To meet these needs, it installed a Centraline building management system (BMS) using software to automate ‘smart’ devices, based upon the Niagara AX Framework, which incorporates 22 Sontay SonNet wireless sensors. The installation was undertaken by Cheshire-based controls specialist Eclipse Control Engineering.

Vital ​

The sensors were installed across the factory in a number of food production and storage environments. Most areas where the sensors have been installed are kept at low temperatures, for example cold stores and freezers, and it was vital they maintained the correct temperature.

“Sontay’s SonNet wireless system was perfect for Wrights because, as well as maintaining an accurate temperature, they can cope with the demanding conditions,”​ said Eclipse director Wayne Murray.

“The integrity of the sensor housing is challenged due to the intense cleaning regime the factory is required to maintain to meet hygiene standards, and with SonNet this is not a problem.​

Benefit ​

“Another benefit of SonNet is that we were able to integrate it with other systems to create a hybrid arrangement using a number of open protocol devices from different manufacturers.”​

A detailed site survey was conducted prior to installation to prove that the equipment would work correctly making installation quick and easy.

Since sensor operation is based on the latest 2.4GHz licence-free radio technology, specifying wireless sensors also had the advantage of eliminating the need for Eclipse to run any structured cabling to the products.