Chapter 10.2, Problem 1RQ

A potato chip is a delicate thing Fragile A pound of pressure will crush it So when you’re making potato chips you need to have a system If you aren't careful instead of potato chips, you’ll end up with potato chip crumbs.

The Jays company in Chicago was a producer of a variety of snack products one of which was potato chips The company is now owned by Snyders. Nonetheless there is much to be learned from a description of Jay’s operations.

To avoid the tendency of potato chips to crush into crumbs Jays used a system of conveyor belts, radial filling chutes and gently vibrating slides where masses of chips a yard deep were gently moved through the process.

The process started with the arrival of semi-trailers full of potatoes usually about a dozen a day.

The potatoes were separated into big and small sizes big potatoes for big chips that go into large bags and small potatoes for small chips for lunch-size bags.

Computers keep track of everything, shunting potatoes to 15 000-pound holding bins Each bin feeds into a pipe containing a turning screw—a version of the ancient Archimedes screw used to pump water-that moves the potatoes from the bin to conveyor belts, to where they are washed and skinned—the skin scrubbed off by metal bristle brushes.

No machine can detect if a potato is rotten inside So a pair of human inspectors gave the potatoes a quick squeeze as they moved along a conveyor and removed those likely to have rot.

The cleaned potatoes were sent into high-speed chippers—spinning brass rings, each with eight blades inside straight blades for straight chips, ripple blades for ripple chips.

The blades cut the potatoes but cutting dulled the blades so every three hours the line had to be stopped so that the blades could be replaced.

The raw chips spent three minutes cooking in hot com oil, when was constantly circulated and filtered Then they were salted and any flavorings such as barbecue were added.

After the chips were fried, there was another quality check, in which workers removed burned and deformed chips out of the masses passing by.

The chips also were laser-inspected Chips with dark spots or holes were removed by a puff of air that knocked them off the line into a discard bin.

The discards-about 3 percent of production-were gathered up and used Starch was drawn out and sold to cornstarch makers, the rest went to hog feed.

Getting the chips in the bags was another challenge. You can't just fill up bags and seal them, the chips would be smashed. Rather, a conveyor poured chips-gently-onto the central hub of a large, wheel-like device, where the chips scattered into 15 buckets that were essentially scales A computer monitored the weight of each bucket to assure there would be just the right amount to fill a 14-ounce bag The bags were packed into boxes that read 'HANDLE LIKE EGGS.’

While not exactly perishable, potato chips do have a shelf life of about eight weeks only one day of which is spent at the plant.

What characteristics of potato chips concern Jays in terms of quality?