Abstract: An automatic cooking machine is formed of housing and loading mechanisms for various food materials positioned at a specified interval, a transfer mechanism for transferring the food materials at the food material loading positions, and a control device for controlling the housing and loading mechanism and the transfer mechanism. In the machine, the foods are continuously prepared by repeating cycles, each including one transfer of a food material from one to subsequent food material loading positions and loading of the food material from one of the housing and loading mechanisms. In the control device, when a temporary stop instruction is input, the food manufacturing operation is not immediately stopped but stopped after the current cycle has finished in order to enable the operation to be resumed from the subsequent cycle using a temporary stop cancel instruction.

Abstract: A defrosting control unit for providing centralized control of the defrosting a showcase having showcase units with defrosting devices includes an environmental informer ion signal generation portion and a defrosting control portion. The signal generation portion generates a signal reflecting at least one environmental parameter such as whether it is daytime or nighttime, the difference in air temperature measured at different places in a showcase unit, the deviation of the temperature difference with respect to a steady-state value, and the temporal variation of the deviation. The defrosting control portion receives the environmental information signal from the signal generation portion and sends a defrosting start signal and a defrosting end signal to the defrosting devices at a time interval . The signal generation portion may include a fuzzy reasoning portion, membership functions, and rules so that an inference on the optimal time for starting a defrosting operation can be made.