Our team worked through five phases to complete this project:
Phase 1: Conveyance Assembly: Each piece is leveled, conveyors are in motion, guardrails are attached, unscrambler and accumulation table are connected to the front & back end of the conveyor.
Phase 2: Staging Equipment: Match the location for each machine as it was outlined in the CAD drawings.
Phase 3: Utilities Connection: Electrical and compressed air lines are dropped and connected to the appropriate machine.
Phase 4: Set-Up and Install Processing Equipment: Follow manufacturer guidelines for proper installation to ensure quality set-up and activate each machine’s respective warranty. Run “dry-tests” on equipment to ensure bottles transfer smoothly between each component of the system, conveyors run at appropriate speeds, and other system fine-tuning.
Phase 5: Job Well Done! Clean-up work space and tools, then time to train employees on the new equipment.
Components
The functions of the components as noted in the video above.
- Rotary Unscrambling Table: Operators load unfilled bottles in bulk onto this table. As it spins at a controlled speed, the bottles are forced to the outside of the table by guides and centrifugal force. The bottles are then aligned along the outside guard rails into a single file line, whereby a final guide leads the bottle at the front of the line onto the conveyor 1 at a time.
- Depositor: Empty bottles travel to the leading edge of the depositor, 2 bottles are stopped intermittently directly under the filler spouts and separated from the line of bottles preceding them. A dual-head piston filler pushes bulk amounts of sauce and deposits a pre-set, measured amount into 2 bottles at a time. A visual sensor detects the fill-line on the bottle to ensure there are no over- or under-fills.
- Capper: Filled bottles travel through the leading edge of the conveyor. Caps (with an internal induction seal) that have been loaded in bulk on the back end of the machine get sorted into 2x single file lines within the machine. When the 2 bottles traveling together arrive underneath their respective capping station, a sensor triggers the capper to drop the cap onto each bottle. The caps are loose-fitting on the tops of the bottles at this point in the process. The loose-fitting caps are then twisted down over the thread of the bottles.
- Induction Sealer: The machine’s heating coil sends a high-frequency electromagnetic feed that generates eddy currents which then heat up the liners and seals them to the flange of the bottles. Once the liner cools, an air-tight seal has been created to ensure freshness of product and tamper-evidency.
- Continuous Ink-Jet Printer: Bottles travel by the print-head mounted on the conveyor. The print head shoots electrically charged ink-droplets onto the bottles which are arranged to create readable text like lot codes and “Best By” date codes. The ink dries almost instantly.
- Rotary Accumulation Table: Finished product leaves the end of the conveyance line and is transferred smoothly onto the rotary table through the singular gap of the outside guard rails. As the table rotates, the items are carried along its surface. Due to the rotation, the items spread out, pushing them outward, creating space in the center of the table. An operator will grab these bottles as they go by and case-pack them while more finished bottles continually fill the table.
- Conveyance: Powered tabletop conveyors move bottles from the unscrambling table to the rotary accumulation table, through each stage previously mentioned. Guard rails on both sides of the conveyor prevent product from tipping off the edges. Controls are in place to set the speed, and to stop the conveyor from continually running if any upstream piece of equipment stops running.
