Sweet & Savoury from Kliklok Woodman
December 01, 2004
BRISTOL, UK — Kliklok Woodman have just supplied a fully automatic endload cartoning & product handling system to an American food producer, specialising in sweet and savoury bakery products. Previously packed on a topload line, this customer chose an endload solution whilst retaining a special “top opening” feature on an endload carton.
The customer’s factory space was long but narrow, therefore an in-line system was needed to make the most of available space.
Due to the nature of the product – topped with chocolate, icing, sugar etc – the new ‘self-cleaning’ Kliklok-Woodman Smooth IPTU, (Independent Product Transfer Unit) was chosen to eliminate any debris from contaminating the flat belts.
The frozen trayed product arrives narrow side leading in a single lane. The Smooth IPTU smoothly and positively transfers the trays into the Kliklok- Woodman Rotary Transfer System (RTS). This carousel unit has a series of locating arms to gently pick up each tray and using a rotary motion, re-orientates the trays to become broadside leading on entry to the product infeed conveyor of Kliklok-Woodman’s HSR endload cartoner at up to 250 cartons per minute.
The trays are then inserted into the cartons and glue closed in the normal way.
A particular request from the customer was a ‘thrift marker’. The operative will identify a substandard product (destined for ‘thrift’) when it is between two identifying marks on the product infeed conveyor by pressing a button. The button will trigger a light that indicates that the button has been pressed. The signal will be stored in a shift register within the PLC of the HSR endloader and be used to signal a proprietary coder to inkjet a special mark to the top panel of the appropriate carton.
This automatic line is about to be installed at the George Weston Bakery plant in New York, alongside their formidable range of other Kliklok Woodman machines, some of which are still running efficiently after more than 40 years!
Contact:
Michelle Tatum
Kliklok-Woodman
Phone: + 44 (0)1275 836131
m.tatum@kliklok-woodman-int.com
www.klikwood.com