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| | The company Emhart Tucker Ltd. in Birmingham is one of the leading UK suppliers of rivets. They are part of the US Group Black & Decker, and their products are sold under the brand name “Pop Rivets”.
Project
Until 1996, all packing was carried out manually by using a linear weighing system for dosing. This process was slow and very labour-demanding.
In order to increase productivity, reduce give-away and labour costs, it was necessary for Emhart Tucker to rationalize their production. They turned to BILWINCO with the below-mentioned requirements for a new weighing and packing line.
Requirements
Product: Pop Rivets lengths up to 80 mm, unit weight 0.5 to 8.0 g.
Portion sizes: Small packaging up to 5 kg. Large packaging up to 22 kg.
Small packaging: Cartons (smallest 90 x 90 x 45 mm / largest 180 x 90 x 180 mm).
Large packaging: Cartons and KLTs (smallest 170 x 235 x 150 mm /largest 295 x 390 x 150 mm).
Capacity: Up to 40 portions per minute.
High accuracy to reduce give-away costs.
Easy and quick change-over from one product and packaging to another. As Emhart Tucker only pack to order, they have a lot of small series and frequent change of product type and/or packaging.
Highly automated operation to reduce labour costs.
Solution
To cover these specifications BILWINCO supplied a packing line built up around a DW100/14-HW multihead weigher. As there was a big difference in size of packaging, a double packing line was made - one conveyor with a single filling station for the large boxes, and another conveyor with a double filling station for the small boxes. The double filling station for the small boxes had to reach a capacity of up to 40 boxes per minute. Both lines are fed from the same weigher.
At the moment, cartons are erected and closed manually which, to a certain degree, puts a limit to the capacity, but the line is designed to work with automatic carton erectors and closers in future.
Technical specifications of the delivered solution/performance
Product feed: By an automatic lift system, vibrating storage hopper and infeed vibrator.
Weighing: DW100/14-HW multihead weigher.
Filling / small boxes A fully automatic synchronizing conveyor and double filling station for filling of two boxes at the same time.
Filling / large boxes A fully automatic synchronizing conveyor and single filling station, for filling of one box at the time.
Capacity: 1 kg portions up to 40 boxes per minute, 22 kg portions 3-4 boxes per minute.
Accuracy +/- 1 g or +/- 1 piece depending on the product (on large portions up to +/- 5 g).
Change-over time Approx. 15 minutes for a complete line with one single operator.
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