Product category:
Machinery/plant guarding and protection
News Release from: Pilz Automation Technology | Subject: PSEN OP2H-30-150 light curtain
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 01 August 2005
Light curtain ensures bottling plant
safety
A more effective and reliable light curtain protects workers from hazardous machinery that can be accessed at the point where a fork lift truck loads pallets of cardboard slips.
Chivas Brothers is renowned around the world for its exceptionally smooth Chivas Regal 12 and 18 Scotch whiskies, as well as other brands such as The Glenlivet and Aberlour single malt whiskies The company has always been safety-conscious and therefore installed a light curtain in its bottling hall to safeguard workers
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 28 Jul 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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Unfortunately the unit that was initially purchased was proving to be unreliable and was threatening the efficiency of a production-critical area of the plant.
After nine months, a decision was taken to replace the light curtain with a more dependable unit from Pilz Automation Technology that would continue to ensure the safety of workers, but without posing any risk to production.
The light curtain protects workers from hazardous machinery that can be accessed at the point where a fork lift truck loads pallets of cardboard slips.
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It is a relatively straightforward application with no muting, but reliability is paramount because the bottling plant has a throughput of 25 cases per minute.
With this equating to a potential throughput of 18,000 bottles an hour, the need to avoid downtime is obvious.
In some cases the failed light curtain could be reset relatively quickly after accessing the control cabinet, thereby minimising downtime, but longer delays were also occurring which were deemed unacceptable.
Chivas Brothers had purchased the light curtain four to five months prior to it being installed and, after nine months of use, the supplier insisted that the 12-month warranty had expired.
Moreover, the same supplier quoted six weeks to deliver a new replacement, which was unacceptable to Chivas, bearing in mind the poor performance of the existing unit.
The company therefore decided to seek an alternative and was aware that Pilz had a range of safety light curtains.
Having had good experiences with other Pilz products such as safety relays, Chivas selected a Pilz PSEN OP2H-30-150 light curtain, which was quickly delivered and installed.
This is a Type 2 (EN/IEC 61496 parts 1 and 2) safety light curtain for hand and body detection, having 30mm resolution and a protected height of 1500mm.
It is suitable for use in safety related control systems conforming to the requirements of BS EN 954-1 Category 2.
Robert Ure, an electrical technician at Chivas, states: "The Pilz safety light curtain has been in place for over five months now and we have had absolutely no problems with it whatsoever".
"This upgrade has been extremely worthwhile, eliminating the risk of costly lost production".
"This, of course, is in addition to ensuring the safety of the fork lift truck driver and other workers in the vicinity of the palletiser." He concludes: "We are very satisfied with the outcome of this upgrade".
"In fact we are now in discussions with Pilz about another application that will call for a further two light curtains, which firmly underlines our faith in the Pilz products." Contact Pilz for more information about the company's range of safety light curtains.
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