Redundancy rules at Old Orchard

Bottles now are conveyed toward an I&H cooler from Fleetwood, another holdover from the previous packaging line. But where bottles used to be crowd-fed into the cooler, they’re now guided in under the firm control of the ICwedge system. It’s a continuous-motion, low-backpressure, single-file-to-mass-flow transfer system that uses three 12’-long wedge-shaped devices made of UHMW polyethylene and mounted on a 36’ belt to form and gently transfer rows of containers 30 at a time into the mass-flow cooler. While transferring one row of 30 bottles into the belt conveyor of the cooler, it is forming the next row of 30.

Unlike the crowd-feed approach typically found in such lines, this method keeps bottles in control and doesn’t give them an opportunity to fall over. Moreover, it’s gentle enough to keep bottles from slamming into each other and causing dents in the plastic, which is softened by the 180° F juice inside.

Because the bottles don’t have to withstand as much stress, Old Orchard was able to trim 2 g from the weight of the bottle, which now tips the scales at a svelte 73 g. “That brings a significant savings over millions and millions of bottles,” says Mangione.

Accumulation space

Exiting the cooler, bottles are conveyed past a bi-directional I&H accumulation table that is pressed into service if downstream equipment goes down. An Arrowhead bottle orienter/single filer uses nine 31¼4” chains that run at progressively faster speeds from outside to inside. This converts the mass flow of bottles to a single lane of bottles—all narrow-side leading—leaning against an inside conveyor rail. This is the orientation required by the Krones 15-station Canmatic labeler, which applies full-wrap cut labels to the 64-oz bottles. The 128-oz bottles have in-mold labels, so the labeler is bypassed when this large bottle is being filled.

Supplied by Hammer Litho, the oriented polypropylene labels on the 64-oz bottles are printed offset in eight colors. Mangione says the full-wrap label is an improvement over the front-and-back labels used formerly on the round, pinch-grip bottle because now the bottles can face either way on the store shelf.

Bottles discharge from the labeler and run past three Wexxar case erectors that set up bliss style cases—die-cut body plus two ends, no minor flaps—for the bottles. As with the bottle-coding equipment, the case erectors were installed with redundancy as a goal, says Mangione.

“Downstream,” he explains, “the two case packers run at a combined speed of more than 50 cases/min, and two case erectors are perfectly capable of handling that. The third case erector only kicks in if one of the other two goes down.”

As cases discharge from the erectors, they fall on the same conveyor belt. But soon that single file must be split in two so that both case packers can be fed.

“To split the single-filed cases we use a new kind of conveyor section,” says Mangione, who adds that it was made by Nercon with design input from conveyor belt maker Intralox as well as Industrial Consortium.

The case diverter consists of an Intralox Series 400 transverse roller-top conveyor that steers freshly set-up cases straight ahead to case packer A. If case packer B is starved for cases, a photocell detects that condition and signals it to the Rockwell Automation ControLogix controller that governs the entire line. The controller then signals the Nercon system, where a pneumatic actuator causes an angled roller-top conveyor to engage, thus diverting cases to case packer B. When a signal is sent to disengage the pneumatic actuator, cases are steered again to case packer A.

Vertical accumulation

A key piece of accumulation equipment, the Dynac 6400 from Hartness, sits near the three case erectors. If the case packers are not ready to receive bottles, they’re automatically diverted into this first-in/first-out system. Because it stores bottles vertically, it’s especially suitable for this relatively space-starved Old Orchard line.

“It gives us about three minutes worth of accumulation,” says Mangione. “That’s really about all you need in a line like this. If the downstream equipment goes down for longer than that, it isn’t accumulation space you need, it’s maintenance or repair.”

Regardless of whether bottles emerge from the Dynac system or simply sail right by it, they move next through a Krones “roof-top” lane divider. Basically a stainless steel tabletop chain conveyor, it’s flat at first but then slants left and right so as to form what looks like the peak of a roof-top running down the middle. Just ahead of the peak, actuators driven by pneumatic cylinders gently nudge each bottle down one side of the peak or the other. The bottles then nestle against guide rails leading to an infeed conveyor for either case packer A or case packer B. Sensors downstream signal which case packer needs bottles, and this information makes its way back to the Krones lane divider.

Both case packers are from Hamrick. The use of side-by-side case packers is another example of the redundancy that characterizes the line.

“We fill the 64-oz bottles at 280 per minute, so typically the case packers each handle about 140 bottles per minute,” says Mangione. “But if one case packer goes down, we can speed the other one up to 250 bottles per minute, so there wouldn’t be much of a drop-off in capacity.”

After Marsh PatrionPlus™ ink-jet coders from Videojet put date and lot code on each case, the cases merge onto a single conveyor leading to a Ryson spiral conveyor that takes cases to a mezzanine level and side-by-side case tapers.

“If one taper runs out of tape or goes down for any reason, cases are automatically directed into the one that’s running,” says Mangione. “A warning light alerts the operator downstairs to attend to the down taper, but there’s no need to slow the machine.”

Taped cases are conveyed nearly 200’ on an ACSI overhead conveyor to the Columbia palletizer, which in turn feeds the Orion stretch wrapper. “It’s another stretch of accumulation that gives us about two minutes if we need it,” says Mangione.

Standing in the warehouse surrounded by pallet loads of cases ready to be shipped, Mangione is clearly pleased by how efficiently the new line performs. “We shut down the plant for 10 days right after New Years 2004, and that’s when the new equipment and revised line configuration went in,” he says. “It was a busy 10 days.”