The driver?
“We save about a dime in materials cost with every 24-count tray,” says director of manufacturing Greg Mangione.
The automated tray wrapper installed at Old Orchard is a Series 90 system from Brenton Engineering. Driven by five Allen-Bradley servo motors from Rockwell Automation, the wrapper delivers speeds of more than 50 trays/min and changes over easily from 12- to 24-count trays.
Operators make electronic changes from drop-down menus on the HMI screen. Mechanical adjustments required are all done by means of knobs and handles set to digital indicators.
The wrapping system also incorporates a Marsh PatrionPlus ink-jet printer from Videojet that puts a production date code on the side of each tray.
See the story that goes with this sidebar: Redundancy rules at Old Orchard
