Fastest sand line in the West
Bagging operations at Mansfield Sand have advanced rapidly during the past 10 years due to growing demand and new legislation. Six men manually placing 40kg bags on pallets were replaced some years ago with an automatic bag placer feeding a heat sealer, a Webster Griffin-supplied bag turner, bag flattener and an A1500 robot.
An in-house-designed pallet conveyor was used to bring an empty pallet forward while moving the completed pallet to the ‘shrink wrap’ station, while a continuous conveyor extending outside the building buffered 10 full pallets ready for removal to the stocking yard. The resulting production output of 500–600 bags per hour with three operators seemed impressive at the time.
The plant produces three grades of quality-controlled dried sand for the foundry, industrial and pavior markets, and with the ability to dry and store 1,000 tonnes of silica sand in silos next to the bagging plant, product availability for the bagging operation was never an issue.
However, the gradual but continual reduction in bag size from 40kg to 25 kg did put strains on production. Forty bags per pallet reduced the daily production tonnage, and this combined with increasing sales and new product lines eventually resulted in 24h working with very little margin for downtime.
As a result, Webster Griffin were approached to offer a solution. They promoted the installation of a flat-form fill-and-seal line, which offered the benefits of greater production using flat film that was less costly than conventional sacks. With ever-increasing oil and polymer prices, and sack and drying costs rising monthly, the Webster proposition appeared to meet all Mansfield Sand’s requirements. However, one sack supplier warned that dust from the company’s dried products would affect the seals and thus flat-form sealing would not be suitable.
Any such doubts were swiftly answered during a visit to Spain where several operations were witnessed bagging all types of dry and moist products using Webster Griffin flat-form seal lines. One of these operations generated far more dust than Mansfield Sand, yet the FFS machine continued to pump out bags without a problem.
As a result an order was placed with Webster Griffin for a 1,000 bags per hour volumetric weigh system to cope with both moist and dry products, together with a 12.5kg, 25kg and 40kg bagging capability. The challenge for Webster was to fit the new system into very limited space alongside the old line, to eliminate production downtime during commissioning and to use up old stocks of sacks. This objective was successfully achieved through the use of angled powered conveyors and a new pick-up table for the robot.
Bagged production at Mansfield Sand has now entered a new era, with the new line continuously throwing out 1,000 bags per hour all day long. With the growth in demand for bagged products, Mansfield Sand say they are now comfortably able to reach their production requirements while also enjoying cost savings per bag and significantly reduced downtime.
Webster Griffin Ltd, Brooklands Park, Farningham Road, Crowborough TN6 2JD; tel: (01892) 664250; fax: (01892) 664340.
An in-house-designed pallet conveyor was used to bring an empty pallet forward while moving the completed pallet to the ‘shrink wrap’ station, while a continuous conveyor extending outside the building buffered 10 full pallets ready for removal to the stocking yard. The resulting production output of 500–600 bags per hour with three operators seemed impressive at the time.
The plant produces three grades of quality-controlled dried sand for the foundry, industrial and pavior markets, and with the ability to dry and store 1,000 tonnes of silica sand in silos next to the bagging plant, product availability for the bagging operation was never an issue.
However, the gradual but continual reduction in bag size from 40kg to 25 kg did put strains on production. Forty bags per pallet reduced the daily production tonnage, and this combined with increasing sales and new product lines eventually resulted in 24h working with very little margin for downtime.
As a result, Webster Griffin were approached to offer a solution. They promoted the installation of a flat-form fill-and-seal line, which offered the benefits of greater production using flat film that was less costly than conventional sacks. With ever-increasing oil and polymer prices, and sack and drying costs rising monthly, the Webster proposition appeared to meet all Mansfield Sand’s requirements. However, one sack supplier warned that dust from the company’s dried products would affect the seals and thus flat-form sealing would not be suitable.
Any such doubts were swiftly answered during a visit to Spain where several operations were witnessed bagging all types of dry and moist products using Webster Griffin flat-form seal lines. One of these operations generated far more dust than Mansfield Sand, yet the FFS machine continued to pump out bags without a problem.
As a result an order was placed with Webster Griffin for a 1,000 bags per hour volumetric weigh system to cope with both moist and dry products, together with a 12.5kg, 25kg and 40kg bagging capability. The challenge for Webster was to fit the new system into very limited space alongside the old line, to eliminate production downtime during commissioning and to use up old stocks of sacks. This objective was successfully achieved through the use of angled powered conveyors and a new pick-up table for the robot.
Bagged production at Mansfield Sand has now entered a new era, with the new line continuously throwing out 1,000 bags per hour all day long. With the growth in demand for bagged products, Mansfield Sand say they are now comfortably able to reach their production requirements while also enjoying cost savings per bag and significantly reduced downtime.
Webster Griffin Ltd, Brooklands Park, Farningham Road, Crowborough TN6 2JD; tel: (01892) 664250; fax: (01892) 664340.
