Bottle Feeding Machine - Solution Investigation
Project Overview: 30Seconds. We Know cleaning. We produce and bottle a range of cleaning products from our facility in Matamata, Waikato. We are seeking a vendor to design, build, deliver and commission a bespoke solution or adapt an existing off the shelf solution for feeding empty bottles on to the start of the filling line. Current State Process: Having optimised our filling rates, operators are now stretched in their capacity to keep the bottle-feeding table full. This has operational efficiency and health & safety implications. In addition a recent change of bottle supplier means or bottles now arrived wrapped in large plastic bags (See images). This is an additional process step. The photos attached show 1. bottles arriving on pallets 2. in the plastic bags before being 3. moved to the transfer table; 4. the plastic bag opened and 5. bottles being manually feed on to the spiral in feeder. When a bottle size change is required, adjustments must be made to the spiral table during the changeover to accommodate the new bottle size. We are investigating the possibility of removing the plastic bags from our incoming bottle deliveries, depending on the potential future benefit of this on any automated / semi-automated solution. Solution & Initial Specifications We are seeking companies operating in New Zealand to engage with us to establish the most cost effective solution to automate the bottle in-feed process to meet current and future capacity requirements. Note these are an outline of our requirements, a fully detail specification would need to be agreed with any selected vendor prior to commencing build. This specification should cover the relevant Health & Safety standards to be met as well as accuracy, capacity and maintenance requirements being finalised. Initial Requirements: - The solution should feed our existing 1 Ltr, 2 Ltr & 5 Ltr bottles in the correct orientation to our existing filling machine. - Option 1: Operator loads bag of bottles on to conveyor and machine orientates and feeds into bottle filling machine. - Option 2: Bottles are emptied into a large holding bin and the machine orientates and feeds the bottles into the filling machine. - Capacity requirements – Bottles per min achieved upto 60 per minute - Changeover to a new bottle size should be achievable in under 10 minutes with one operator. - Error rate on loading to be achieved 0.001% (1 in 100,000 bottles). **This error restriction can be relaxed if combined with an error recovery process / mechanism that can reset the machine in < 2 Minutes.** (This update reflects feedback that to achieve this error rate requirement could introduce additional cost to the project). - Intuitive control through a HMI display with recipe capability. - New Zealand based after sales & service preferred. - Any solution would be in proximity to Class 6 & Class 8 chemicals used in our products. - The solution should adhere to all relevant New Zealand safety standards which we would look to our vendor to advise and certify. From this Fulcrum project, we are primarily interested to hear from automation providers who have a track record of delivering similar automated solutions and are able to advise on an effective solution. ---------- Added by Fulcrum Commission: 5% of first 12 months of invoices (commences at first invoice). Invoiced monthly including GST.
Details
- Project StatusAt concept stage - Looking for ideas
Budget
TBC
Relevant Industry(s)
- Fast Moving Consumer Goods
Relevant Technology
- Manufacturing Execution Systems
- Shopfloor / Process Automation & Robotics
Tags: Relevant KPIs Impacted
- Workforce Efficiency
- Material Efficiency (Yield / Waste / Scrap)
- Workforce Flexibility
- Production Flexibility