Is LabVIEW in use in the Food Industry ?

[Matthew_Kelton]

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@tst wrote:

I would also be interested in hearing more about that one.

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 It's been a while.  1999-2000.  I forget the name of the company now, but they used these 4'x6'x4' bins to grow different types of product.  Sprouts were their big commodity, but there were some other small things (mushrooms, I think were grown).  The room held 14 bins in a 2x7 configuration.  The LV application allowed the user to define a "recipe" for how often it should be watered and treated with chemicals as well as total grow time.

The room had a motorized water and chemical dispenser which I controlled the speed and direction as well as whether it was running at all.  So at specified, times, I would execute the recipe and water/fertilize the necessary bins.  Each bin was independent, so they could load bins at whatever rate they desired.  The application kept track of what bins were what and how long they had been run.  This motorized system could water either side, or both, and their were sensors between bins to determine when the system switched bins and could cut off watering if necessary.

There was also very basic temperature control via a heater and exhaust fan.

The program was no where near as insteresting as the adventure of the trips (2) I took.  The owner of the facility was into something not on the up and up.  I got evacuated when someone in Lebanon was sending missles/projectiles into the area.  I also had a $200 cab ride that I luckily did not have to pay for (customer did after much arguing with the guy carrying a gun).  I also ended up having a free day in Tel Aviv and laid out on the beach under an umbrella (except my feet) and had nasty purple sunburns on my feet with 1.5" green blisters for my trip back to the US.

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Hi CC:

I found this recent addition on the Dev Zone, if it helps, regarding Kraft's use of LabVIEW to maximize productivity and reduce downtime on packaging lines. The key was that LabVIEW allowed rapid development of the system.

http://sine.ni.com/cs/app/doc/p/id/cs-783

-AK2DM

[tbob]

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@AnalogKid2DigitalMan wrote:

Hi CC:

I found this recent addition on the Dev Zone, if it helps, regarding Kraft's use of LabVIEW to maximize productivity and reduce downtime on packaging lines. The key was that LabVIEW allowed rapid development of the system.

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Will they reduce the price of macaroni and cheese because of this?

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Surely they will, as long as it is not "spaghetti code"

[tst]

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@Matthew Kelton wrote:

The program was no where near as insteresting as the adventure of the trips (2) I took.  The owner of the facility was into something not on the up and up.  I got evacuated when someone in Lebanon was sending missles/projectiles into the area.  I also had a $200 cab ride that I luckily did not have to pay for (customer did after much arguing with the guy carrying a gun).  I also ended up having a free day in Tel Aviv and laid out on the beach under an umbrella (except my feet) and had nasty purple sunburns on my feet with 1.5" green blisters for my trip back to the US.

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Ouch. You make it sound so crazy, almost like the wild west.

P.S. I would guess that was NIS 200 (about $50), not $200.

[Matthew_Kelton]

No, it was $200US.  From Tel Aviv to somewhere near Haifa.  The second trip I took the train for substantially less.

[Mr._Jim]

For what it's worth, I did some work for an internationally known soft drink manufacturer. (hint: competitor of Coca-Cola)  They use LabVIEW to test the performance of their fountain dispensers.  I'm itching to go into more detail, but we had an NDA with them.

Jim

[altenbach]

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@Mr. Jim wrote:
hint: competitor of Coca-Cola

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Inca_Kola??? 😄

[Ben]

Since your end goal to get LV introduced to the cariculum...

Who about using "peer pressure"

Carnegie Mellon University (winner of the most recent DARPA Grand Challenge) has started teaching LV.

The owner of my company teaches this course using "LabVIEW for Everyone" by Jeffrey Travis and Jim Kring.

So try using the arguement that

"Well CMU does it. Do we want our students to be left in the dust?"

Ben