Opal came to us with a blank sheet of paper looking for a solution to automate their reel handling process. Our customer requests were very clear: improved Health & Safety, increased production capability, reduced reliance on labour and compliance to a higher hygiene standard.
With operators at each of their seven production lines having to manually handle long and heavy shafts (>2m and up to 70kg) the need to improve health and safety was a key driver.
The customer’s manual operation had required forklifts to transport the 1.5T reels between the warehouse and production environments. A second motivation was to increase hygiene compliance by removing this potential for cross contamination.
Our solution centralised the reel shafting and de-shafting process. This allowed a single operator to prepare the reels for all seven lines while at the same time creating a single transfer point between the warehouse and high hygiene production area.
Line operators can now request reels for the production run from field mounted RML Human Machine Interfaces. These connect to a centralised database and allow the ‘reelman’ to feed the required reels into the automated cell where they are prepped before entering the automated shafting process.
An ABB IRB7600 handles the heavy shafts and stillages. We installed vision and laser technology to achieve the high accuracy (<1mm) requirements.
Shafts were equipped with RFID tags to enable tracking and validation. Once a shaft is inserted into the reel a specified distance, it is then inflated to lock onto each reel and then hoisted onto a stillage frame and conveyed into the high hygiene area.
A similar process is then performed in reverse.
As the shafts, reels and stillages are heavy, advanced automatic fault handling and recovery needed to be integrated into the design to ensure any operator involvement was minimal.
An AGV operating in the high-hygiene zone transports the reels to and from each of the production lines thus removing any manual forklifts from the production area.
Our integrated, advanced operation ensures the best quality cream cheese is produced consistently.
It was an opportunity to increase the packing line automation, with labour savings offsetting the capital costs.
RML worked with us to understand our requirements and designed a solution to suit our needs. RML delivered an automated system to service two moulding machines producing the Gallagher Ring Top Posts.
We set RML a challenge, design and build a new butter packing machine for a challenging application. RML produced a smart and effective solution that exceeded our expectations.
Ongoing service and support is important to us. RML knew this and I am pleased to say we are not disappointed. I have and will continue to recommend RML to others in our industry based on our experience
We have found RML to be a professional automation solutions provider dedicated to developing, building and maintaining our sophisticated equipment. Their open and honest approach has resulted in very positive outcomes for us.
From the first day we sat down with the RML team, through to today, we’ve been so impressed by the level of service and quality of machinery that they have built for us.
Of all of the types of packers that we have on site (past and present) the RML packers have proven to be the most reliable, and easiest to maintain.
The design process went very smoothly, start up and commissioning went better than we anticipated. We have found the RML team to be professional, proactive and very responsive to questions and quick to resolve any problems for us.
IF YOU HAVE A PRODUCTION CHALLENGE,
WE’D LOVE TO SOLVE IT.
6 Chafer Place,
Burbush, Hamilton 3200
13-17 Hillwin St,
Reservoir VIC 3073
