A few years ago, as a result of growing production volumes, a kiwifruit grower was in search of a system to efficiently increase annual throughput in the packing house by up to 30 percent annually. However, their pre-existing pusher arm-based system that sorted cartons from the packers to the palletizing operations posed a challenge to accommodate this growth. "It maxed out at 24 cartons per minute while also suffering from issues like box damage and potential safety hazards," says Mo Al Khatib, Account Manager with Intralox in New Zealand. Although protections were installed to prevent people from reaching in to clear jams, safety remained an ongoing issue.
"Our customer was looking for a flexible solution that could sort any box from two packing lines to any of the six manual palletizing stations," commented Al Khatib. "It was important that the new system would reach a capacity of up to 40 boxes per minute in a limited space and at the same time eliminating box crush points and safety hazards."
The solution that met all requirements was the Intralox® Activated Roller Belt™ (ARB™) Merge S400 (2:1) with a six-exit Dual-Stacked Angled Roller™ Belt (DARB™) 90-Degree Sorter S4500. The system smoothly merges boxes into a single line and sorts them 90 degrees with a tight footprint to the manual palletizing stations, with far fewer moving parts and no guarding. See video below.
Results
The Intralox solution was able to handle up to 40 boxes per minute contingent on the box filler being able to supply the throughput, allowing customer Punchbowl PackCo. Kiwifruit Services from New Zealand to significantly increase their capacity compared to previous seasons. "The Intralox Merge and Sorter have become an integral part of our packaging system," shared Simon Craig, Punchbowl's General Manager. "They have enabled a 66 percent increase in production volume while allowing us to optimize the flow of boxes to our palletizing stations."
Next step
Fast forward a few years, as a result of increased planting and harvesting of kiwifruit, Punchbowl was gearing up to handle even greater volumes of packed cartons. One area that Punchbowl was particularly focused on optimizing was the transfer of filled boxes after the box fillers. The company's existing system used chain-driven conveyors to transfer cartons 90 degrees from box-filling machines to a trunk conveyor, which took the kiwifruit boxes downstream to labeling and palletizing. "Because of the successful installation of the Merge and Sorter earlier, Punchbowl came to us again for an efficient, low maintenance solution that would be able to handle the higher box volumes within the available floor space," shared Al Khatib. "We identified the Activated Roller Belt™ (ARB™) 90-Degree Transfer S400 Virtual Pocket Merge as the best solution for this application." In just three months, the ARB-based merging solution was designed and built by Punchbowl's sister company—Punchbowl Automation—in conjunction with Intralox. See short video below.
Benefits of new system
The Intralox system allowed Punchbowl to increase their capacity and to handle more boxes than many conventional solutions, with the Intralox Virtual Pocket Merge able to handle up to 42 cartons per minute, contingent on the upstream box filler's capacity. In addition, floor space has been reduced by 25 percent and the amount of equipment needed to move cartons from the grader to the palletizer has also decreased. Moreover, this solution significantly reduced unplanned downtime and maintenance overtime, even eliminating belt tracking and tensioning on the relevant conveyors from the plant's weekly checklist. "No repairs or replacements have had to be made so far, and none are expected for years to come."
The Intralox carton handling solutions installed over the years have enabled Punchbowl Kiwifruit Services to efficiently pack increasing volumes while eliminating or minimizing downtime, maintenance and safety issues related to legacy solutions. "As we stare into a future with increasing volumes of product, we aim to continue working with Intralox to further optimize our carton handling operations," finished Craig.
© Intralox
For more information:
Mo Al Khatib
Intralox New Zealand
Tel: +64 21 1906992
[email protected]
www.intralox.com