#WorldChocolateDay

Hershey reveals part of its manufacturing process in its Create Your Own Candy Bar interactive display at Hershey Chocolate World for any of their 3 million annual guests to use. Visitors can create a custom candy bar by selecting their favorite type of chocolate (white, dark or milk) and choices of toppings and even design their own packaging. Guests can watch the entire process of their chocolate bar’s production from the automated picking of the chocolate bar type from a dispenser magazine to its movement through an enrober and into a cooling tunnel.

“If something goes wrong in a typical manufacturing plant, only a few employees see it,” said Herman Rhoads, senior staff engineer. “This attraction, on the other hand, gives everyone an inside look at our operations, and really intensifies the need for smooth, streamlined production.”

Two systems were required for this project – a retail portal where visitors could order a chocolate bar and the production system to create it. This involved connecting  controllers, servo drivers, networking technology and software. A SQL server provides the interface between the retail and production systems and assigns the guest’s name and a barcode to each bar produced.

“Marrying the IT-managed, retail system to the production system was a first for us, and a rarity for most manufacturing environments,” Rhoads said. The entire project took approximately two months to complete with an external integrator to program the HMI system, bar de-stacker and the customized belt.