THE REQUIREMENT:
Customer had a coffee bagging line outputting bags at up to 35 bpm. They were using two operators at the end of the line to pack bags into cases. Time studies showed that this could be reduced to one operator if the bags arrived in a manner that allowed 4 bags to be picked up at the same time.
THE SOLUTION:
PMC created an automatic bag rotating gripper that aligned bags into rows of 3. The bags are pushed onto a conveyor at 90 degrees where custom SS plate guide rails separate them into 3 lanes. This allowed them to convey to operator in an organized manner where they could be picked four at a time.
The gripper sub-assembly was designed to be height adjustable, allowing it work with a range of bag heights and sizes.
PMC constructed a custom safety structure to meet CSA Z432-2023 safety code and provided a PSR evaluation and report.
THE RESULTS:
The machine is operating efficiently and customer was able to reduce the head count by one team member.
After fine tuning the setup in production conditions, the machine effectively handles all bag sizes without requiring any changeover.
These results combined to create a quick ROI for the customer.