Spee-Dee Case Study No. 6: Improve Product Fill Speeds
01. Sep, 2010
- 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%.
