conveyor system with integrated mixing process for the food and beverage industry

Project 13

Malaysia refreshed

Delivery period: January 2019

The client: ALFOTEC conveyor systems get involved everywhere – even in Malaysia
Our client is a trading company from Malaysia with partner offices in Germany and Bangkok. This company is mainly active on the markets in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. Its core competencies consist of engineering services as well as the procurement or import of machines, plants and steel materials from Germany and Europe. The customer base is primarily composed of companies in the food and beverage, chemical, oil and gas and electronics industries.

Features

Conveying Elements: Strand conveyor
Converter and change of direction
Convey Goods: Container max. 1.500 kg
Industry: Food and beverage industry

The task and special challenges

The task was to supplement an existing mixer station with a conveyor system to be developed by us in such a way that the mixing process and the transport of the material to be conveyed between the feed and take-off station could be fully automated in future – without the need for expensive conversions at the mixer station. Stainless steel containers with surrounding frames are used for the material to be conveyed. These are filled with various, precisely defined components, which are mixed by rotation in the mixing station. The containers, including frames, have the external dimensions 1,200 x 1,200 x 2500 mm (W x L x H) and can weigh up to 1,500 kg.

Furthermore, a weighing device should be integrated into the conveyor system in order to determine the total weight of the respective container contents. The main problem was that due to the required low overall height at the mixer station, our lifting tables were too high even in the lower end position. So we had to come up with an innovative idea to solve this problem – a challenge that we met with enthusiasm and high motivation.

The idea:

In order to reduce the height of the lifting table in the retracted state to the construction dimension required at the mixer station, we developed a lifting table with a circulating chain conveyor instead of a surface-mounted chain conveyor. This chain conveyor moves to different heights at the mixing station, so that the individual steps of the mixing process can be carried out fully automatically.

The entire conveyor system

production situation for the food and beverage industry

The conveying process:

The driverless transport system available in the company transports the container to the feeding station of the U-shaped conveyor system. This is identical in construction with the take-off station at the end of the conveyor system.

From the feeding station the container (2) closed with a lid (1) is transported to a chain conveyor with load cells or to the weighing station (3). There the exact weight of the container contents is determined.

The container (5) reaches the mixing station below the mixing drum (6) via two revolving platforms (4), each of which rotates 90 degrees.

So that the lid arm can swing in between the drum (7) and the container (8), the newly developed lifting table (9) with circulating chain conveyor lowers into the lower end position.

The chain conveyor now moves up to the removal level of the lid gripper so that it can grip the lid.

The lifting table with the container lowers to the lower end position.

The lid arm swings away with the lid.

The chain conveyor now moves up completely until the container (10) docks with the mixing drum (11) and locks the container.

The chain conveyor then moves down completely so that the container hangs freely suspended on the mixer drum.

Now the actual mixing process takes place: It consists of a slow 180 degree rotation so that the contents get into the mixing drum and are then mixed by a screw (like in a concrete mixer). The container then turns back again by 180 degrees.

After the end of the mixing process, each container is placed back on the lifting table with circulating chain conveyor after steps 4. to 8., which then take place in reverse order.

From there the containers are automatically transported to the delivery station where they can be picked up by the driverless transport system for further use.

The customer benefits:

100% integration into existing operational intralogistics
Trouble-free transport of the material to be conveyed
Faster throughput times – higher productivity
High operational safety – minimal risk of downtime
The conveyor system is designed in a modular way so that it can be easily extended if necessary.

We had already developed a similar system on behalf of the managing director of our client in 2004, when he was still working for another company in Germany. This plant is still operating trouble-free today – and was probably the best recommendation for us as to why the company chose ALFOTEC when awarding the contract.