Energy efficient conveyors from Dematic will transport bins used in production at Coca-Cola Amatil’s new manufacturing facility in Sydney
August 11, 2011
Energy-efficient conveyors will transport and accumulate bins used in production at Coca-Cola Amatil’s (CCA) new preform and closure manufacturing facility at Eastern Creek in Sydney.
Dematic’s integrated pallet conveyor solution requiriesless than half the drives of conventional pallet conveyor systems.
CCA’s new $57m facility is part of the beverage giant’s on-going vertical integration of manufacturing operations, which includes ‘blow-fill’ technology to produce PET beverage containers.
The new preform facility will produce 2.8 billion preforms and closures for CCA’s beverage bottle self-manufacture operations.
CCA will install Dematic’s pallet conveyor system to transport collapsible bins from a series of assembly stations and accumulate them ready for production.
The accumulation pallet conveyor system provides staging capacity for up to 20 empty bins, with a system throughput of up to 45 bins per hour.
Once empty bins are erected, the conveyor system accumulates and transports the bins to a pick up station where they are collected by an automated guided vehicle (AGV) and taken to production.
When bins are full or no longer required, AGVs return them to a drop off point where they are conveyed and accumulated by the conveyor system for forklift removal. The bins are then stored until they are despatched to CCA’s beverage production plants.
Dematic Industry Group Manager Manufacturing David Rubie says the new unit load and pallet accumulation conveyor is a versatile solution for many manufacturing and distribution applications.
Developed by Dematic technology partner Qubiqa, it provides a number of benefits compared to previous generation conveyors, which typically require additional drive motors for each section of accumulation conveyor.
“Fewer drives reduces both the installed and on-going costs of conveyor systems,” Rubie says.
“With conveyors in manufacturing applications typically running multiple shifts or even around the clock, the conveyor’s reduced energy requirements will substantially lower running costs.
“In addition, having fewer drives also reduces maintenance and parts support requirements,” he says.