Page 36 - Food&Drink July 2019

Milking the system
When a dairy processor needed to meet increased production demands it turned to FlexCAM to improve efficiencies.
Kim Berry reports.
FLEXCAM was approached by a dairy processor that was looking to increase its production capacity but had an existing system proving difficult and costly to scale up.
There were problems transferring bottles between conveyors and other handling equipment, requiring constant monitoring and rectification. This resulted in lost production time and increased labour costs as lines had to be manually cleared for the next run.
Then, due to poor product control in terms of labelling orientation, finished goods were being rejected because of incorrect label location.
Maintenance requirements on the line were high and replacing custom parts and components was proving costly.
The old system was unable to accommodate new product
designs and also had a large footprint, using up valuable floor space.
ENGINEERING A SOLUTION
FlexCAM was briefed to design a space efficient system to fit the existing facility and footprint while also resolving the production problems.
FlexCAM project manager Adi Sosiawan told Food & Drink Business, “By using wedge elevators, we moved the production off the ground, reducing the use of floor space by ninety per cent
in critical areas. With the help of our in-house CAD simulation tool we were able to optimise the production flow and assess all safety and hygienic requirements. Working closely with the on-site operations team,
our engineers capitalised
the design to ensure production expectations were met and output requirements achieved.”
To provide a cost effective solution a combination of aluminium and stainless steel conveyor systems were decided on. In critical areas where hygienic requirements had to be met, IP66-rated stainless steel systems were installed, while in non-critical sections aluminium conveyor systems were used to maximise value.
“With the help of our automatic guide rail systems we were able to combine three separate lines into a single configurable line capable of handling various pack sizes between nominated minimum and maximum dimensions,” Sosiawan says, noting that X-Bend transfers were used to ensure good control of product
36 | Food&Drink business | July 2019 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au