www.spee-dee.com

• Company: Fortune 500 Food Processor
• Objective: Improve existing fill speeds while reducing costly line downtime.
• Situation: The client was using a vertical form/fill/seal machine with a combination scale to fill bags with a crumb product. Speeds of a respectable 40/minute were common, however the greatest problem was messy product build-up on the scale, which caused inaccurate fills and resulted in substantial downtime for cleaning. Line maintenance costs were also excessive.
• Solution: Spee-Dee® installed a new Servo 3500 Digitronic® Direct Drive Auger Filler in place of the scales. In order to be compatible with other equipment in the plant, an Allen-Bradley PLC and PanelView were used for the control system.
• Bottom line: The auger system installed by Spee-Dee enabled the material to be completely enclosed from processing until it entered the bag, addressing product build-up issues. Average line speeds improved to 70/minute, with downtime reduced to near 0%.

• Company: Large Coffee Processor
• Objective: Install a system to improve and maintain product fill accuracy rates.
• Situation: The client was running fraction pack coffee on a vertical form/fill/seal machine with clutch/brake augers. An offline scale was used to check weights. Two problems existed. One, the scales were not feeding back to the augers and two, the operators were inconsistent in taking the sample weights.
• Solution: The clutch/brake auger was converted by Spee-Dee® to a servo drive to enhance accuracy. In addition, a new offline check weigh feedback system was added, which averaged sample weights and made adjustments to the auger if weights trended heavy or light due to density shifts. A three tower light system was then added to notify when samples were required, forcing operators to take sample weights on a timely basis. If the light was green, all was well. When the light shifted to yellow, it was time to take samples. If samples were not taken within a preset time, the light went to red and the bagger shut down until samples were taken.
• Bottom line: The new system not only improved accuracy on each fill, it also ensured precision was maintained through the check weigh feedback and operator monitoring system, reducing costly product giveaway.

• Company: Fortune 500 Food Processor
• Objective: Upgrade the company’s existing powder filling line to improve both speed and accuracy while interfacing with the existing Allen-Bradley based control system.
• Situation: The client had four vertical form/fill/seal machines with clutch/brake augers. Each was controlled independently by the auger’s proprietary controls.
• Solution: Spee-Dee® replaced the four clutch/brake systems with direct servo drive conversion kit packages. The existing hardware, hopper, columns, head castings, agitators, and tooling were all retained to save money. A single custom designed Allen-Bradley electrical system was used to control all four augers from a single panel, while the software was incorporated into the client’s PanelView operator interface. In addition, check weigh feedback was installed to control shifts in product density.
• Bottom line: The Spee-Dee system significantly reduced costly line downtime while improving accuracy, resulting in substantial savings in the form of decreased product giveaway. In the words of the client, “By removing the clutch/brake and drive assembly from the old auger heads, the servo conversion has drastically reduced our maintenance requirements and has cut downtime as a result. The servo drive has allowed us to increase the speed of our pouch fillers and maintain a tighter weight control system, thus allowing us to give away less product.”

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• Company: Fortune 500 Food Processor
• Objective: Develop an in-house packaging system to address product quality issues while maintaining a required fill rate of 50/minute.
• Situation: The company produces a side dish product which is comprised of a particulate ingredient and a sauce mix. In this process, one product was placed on top of the other and the sauce mix was never properly blended with the particulate, resulting in chunks. Due to numerous failed attempts to resolve this problem, the client doubted that a successful solution would be found.
• Solution: Spee-Dee® mounted two augers on a vertical form/fill/seal machine, one straight and one canted at 30 degrees, both going into a common collector funnel. This resulted in a better blending of the product before it went into the pouch.
• Bottom line: Not only were product quality and consistency improved, pouches were ultimately packaged at an average fill rate of 70/minute, 140% of what was originally mandated by the client.

• Company: Large Food Processor
• Objective: To improve filling accuracy while decreasing levels of product dust in the packaging process.
• Situation: The company was using a high-speed rotary pouching machine with belt feeders to fill cocoa into packets at a rate of 750/minute. With this system, the product was exposed to open air until it was filled into the pouches, resulting in significant product loss through airborne cocoa dust. Maintenance costs were high, as the circumstances necessitated that the machine be stopped and cleaned as often as two to three times per day.
• Solution: A Spee-Dee® Twin 3500 Digitronic® Auger Filler was installed in place of the belt feeders and was then tied into the client’s existing electrical control systems, resulting in better product handling and more accurate filling during the packaging process. The addition of a dust shroud on the tooling prevented airborne product from dispensing into the air.
• Bottom line: Machine clean-out was greatly reduced, resulting in a noticeable decrease in maintenance expenses and costly downtime. And, while the filling speed was maintained, dust levels diminished and product fill accuracy significantly improved. IN FACT, FILLING DISCREPANCY DECREASED FROM 4 GRAMS PER PACK TO LESS THAN 1 GRAM PER PACK, WHICH AMOUNTS TO SAVINGS OF MORE THAN 135,000 GRAMS PER HOUR!

• Company: Large Food Processor
• Objective: Reduce product giveaway by improving fill accuracy.
• Situation: The company was utilizing a vertical form/fill/seal machine with a clutch/brake auger to fill gravy mix into pouches. Inconsistent fill rates had resulted in an unacceptably large number of rejects and an excessively high average unit weight, negatively impacting profitability.
• Solution: To increase fill accuracy, Spee-Dee converted the customer’s existing All-Fill clutch/brake auger to a servo unit. This cost-effective equipment modification enabled the company to immediately reduce the average pouch weight by nearly 4 grams and decrease the total number of rejected pouches.
• Bottom line: Dramatically diminishing the average reject rate from 5.0% to 1.6% resulted in an annual packaging material savings of $9,886. By lowering the average pouch target weight by nearly 4 grams, product giveaway was reduced by $19,764 within one year of installation. Break even was achieved in less than six months.

We wanted to take a moment to talk about our rotary filling machines – the latest and greatest in quick, precise container filling.

Perfect for powdered products such as spices, infant formula, non-dairy creamer, etc. the rotary filler will allow you to fill anywhere from 100-400 bottles per minute depending on the size of your container.

Of course, what really makes this new machine amazing is the fact that it’s the first improvement on rotary filler technology in YEARS. This machine could potentially save you hundreds of thousands of dollars by increasing filling speed and efficiency, decreasing down time and product waste/give away as well as decreasing cost of change parts.

So What’s So New About This Rotary Filling Machine?

There’s 2 major improvements we’ve made:

• All Servo Control/Drive Technology – This means all electronic control so you can make changes quickly and be assured every adjustment is precise. By utilizing the superiority of servo technology electronically coordinated with timing screws, you get the same precise fill every time with less wear parts involved.
• Quick Change Over – With our quick change plastic “container adapters” you can adjust the machine to fit different jar and container sizes quickly, using less expensive parts and no tools.

But really, reading about it doesn’t do the machine justice…check out the video to see the rotary filler in action!