Being active in manufacturing food emulsifiers, one of our clients has multiple finishing lines and multiple packaging formats. Two of these finishing lines, a spray chiller and a flaker/mill, have outlets to their own 25 kg packing lines and a joint BigBag filling line. The process routes to this joint BigBag filling system are relatively long and include some screw conveyors give rise to product scaling and incidental product lumps ending up in the powdered product. In addition to the lumping issue, the existing BigBag filling system is tucked away in a corner, giving the operator very little room to manoeuvre the BigBags away after filling without dislodging the BigBag filling system load cells.
After discussions with our client’s site engineers and operating staff and consulting several equipment suppliers, we’ve proposed installing an alternative transport system to feed the BigBag filling system and leave the routes to the 25 kg packing lines unaltered. The alternative transport route to the BigBag filling system consisted of a vacuum conveyor with 2 pickup points (one for each finishing line), a sieve to take out any lumps, magnetic bars to remove any metallic parts and a BigBag filling system. To make the new BigBag filling system better accessible, we’ve proposed to decommission and uninstall 2 mixers in the packing area and situate the new BigBag filler where these mixers are. To prevent any damage to the load cells of the BigBag filler by pallet truck impact, we’ve recommended installing a pre-weight system. As the implementation of these modifications in the small area available is cumbersome, especially so, as ongoing production is not supposed to be affected by these modifications, getting project planning and production planning aligned is vital.
For our client, we’ve made the basic design for the new system, with budget and project plan, and we’ve helped them with the price and terms negotiations for the delivery and installation of the equipment. Currently, we are coordinating the decommission of the mixers and installing the new system.
