Cooking ingredient supplying device
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional automatic noodle dish serving systems face challenges in reducing installation space, maintaining ingredient quality, and ensuring sanitary control due to inefficient noodle refilling processes, which lead to elongated system size and potential quality deterioration of frozen noodles.
Innovation Solution
A cooking ingredient supplying device with a temperature-retention cabinet body, an ingredient storage unit, a tray, an ingredient supply door, and a refill door, featuring an ingredient feeding member and a transmission disengagement mechanism that allows for quick and easy refilling while maintaining ingredient temperature and preventing exposure to external air.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the noodle supplying device is refilled with frozen noodles from the heat-cooking device side, then the refilling operation can be performed, but the installation space is elongated and the refilling operation becomes difficult and inconvenient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the conventional refilling approach by providing a refill door on the upstream side (opposite to the heat-cooking device side) instead of on the downstream side. This allows frozen noodles to be refilled from the upstream end, shortening the required installation space while maintaining refilling accessibility.
2Length of stationary object
If the noodle supplying device is refilled with frozen noodles from the upstream side, then the installation space is reduced, but the frozen noodles are exposed to external air-conditioned environment and condensation occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an airtight refill door as an intermediary barrier between the frozen noodles and the external air-conditioned environment. This door allows refilling operations from the upstream side while preventing direct exposure to external air, thus avoiding condensation on the frozen noodles.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a protected environment within the noodle supplying device by sealing it with airtight doors. The refill door maintains this sealed environment during refilling operations, effectively creating an inert atmosphere that prevents condensation and quality deterioration of the frozen noodles.
3Ease of operation
If the frozen noodles are exposed to external air-conditioned environment, then the refilling can be performed easily, but the quality of frozen noodles deteriorates and sanitary control becomes necessary
Solution Approach 1:
The patent maintains a sealed, protected environment within the noodle supplying device using airtight doors. This creates an inert atmosphere that prevents quality deterioration and sanitary issues while still allowing easy refilling operations through the sealed refill door on the upstream side.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a cooking ingredient supplying device that allows easy removal and refilling of ingredient blocks. In a cooking ingredient supplying device in which a plurality of ingredient blocks M are placed on a tray and an ingredient feeding member is driven by a drive mechanism to sequentially feed and supply the ingredient blocks M from the ray in a temperature-retention cabinet body, the tray is provided so as to be pulled out from the temperature-retention cabinet body in a tray pull-out direction (Y direction) that intersects with an ingredient feed direction (X direction) by the ingredient feeding member.