KANSAS CITY, MO. — Shick Esteve announced April 22 the opening of its expanded Linxis North American Technology Center in Kansas City, designed for testing and demonstrating the company’s ingredient automation, dough technology and process management equipment.

The facility will feature equipment innovations from three Linxis Group partners: DIOSNA, Unifiller and VMI.

The nearly 15,000-square-foot technology center is the result of an expansion of its previous 3,500-square-foot testing laboratory. The facility offers temperature-controlled joint testing, as well as a training and education center.

Ingredient automation solutions featured at the technology center include bulk and micro ingredients, dry ingredient blending, sifter validation and dry ingredient chilling, as well as precise metering, dosing and three-stream water blending for liquid automation. Liquid blending capabilities will also be showcased.

The facility features pre-dough/fermentation technology, grain soaking and delivery, two types of continuous dough mixing, four types of vertical dough mixing, and the company’s latest process control and integrated data services. These include Clarity Process Management and IIoT 4.0, IO-Link Remote I/O and devices, and PlantPAx/Factory Talk SE.

“The Linxis North American Technology Center was designed and built to show our current and prospective customers how the latest in ingredient automation, dough technology and process controls can benefit their business,” said Jason Stricker, director of sales and marketing, Shick Esteve. “Customers can test specific aspects of automated ingredient systems, mixing and dough technology, all the way to a complete proof of concept from ingredient delivery through mixing and baking.”

Shick Esteve’s new tech center will also provide finished product testing and demonstration capabilities for conveying technologies, including dense phase vacuum, high-pressure and continuous transfer, validation of transfer rates based on pipe size and routing, and optimal air flow and vacuum/pressure conditions.

Material properties testing will also demonstrate solutions for different particle strengths, liquid viscosities, and analysis of solids.

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