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Robotic depalletiser ousts manual skid loading
An
Aetna UK product story
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk editorial team
Jun 30, 2003
Manufacturers of plasterboard have shown great interest in a new system that completely eliminates the expensive and slow process of rotating two tonne packs.
Manufacturers of plasterboard have shown great interest in a new system launched by Aetna UK, which completely eliminates the expensive and slow process of rotating two tonne packs.
Historically when stacking plasterboard, to ensure the boards were protected from dirt or moisture, manufacturers had to choose between stacking the boards directly onto expensive pallets and then wrapping with a horizontal wrapper, or using skids or bearers as a more cost effective medium, with the stretch film holding the skids in place.
In order to carry out this operation it meant they had to apply the skids to the top of the pack, and then wrap the pack before placing the whole stack into a large heavy-duty rotation system, which revolved the stack, thus placing the skids on the bottom.
Whilst the placing of the skids could be automated the loading of the skids into the placing unit was a laborious manual task.
The new Spiror system, with skid insertion and horizontal wrapping combined with a robotic depalletising system, eliminates the need to hand load skids into magazines.
Skids are delivered directly from the bulk pallet to the skid feeding system and are then inserted one at a time under the stack without the need to stop the pack, then both pack and skids are kept in place during the wrapping operation by a special bridge conveyor section.
The system incorporates a pre-stretching device for film economy, and is designed to automatically measure packs for either 900 or 1200 width and 1200 to 3600 length.
It then calculates the number of skids required and places them in the correct position.
The whole operation is continuous and capable of wrapping packs at 1 per minute, which means that operator involvement is reduced to loading a bulk pallet into the system and then removing the retraining straps.
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