Case De-Palletizing
When you’re working in the food and beverage industry, you need equipment that allows you to prepare and package your product while remaining compliant with stringent food safety standards. It’s also crucial to consider employee safety, as repetitive manual de-palletization can lead to stress injuries and strain.
When we created an automatic case de-palletizing solution for Nestlé, a leading beverage manufacturer, we aimed to provide a machine that would improve their processes and fit seamlessly into their existing operations.
The Challenge
In this case, we needed to turn an inefficient process completed mostly by humans into a quick, efficient system.
Nestlé’s original process involved placing a stack of flat folded boxes on the end of a conveyor with a forklift, then lifting one side of the stack up until it all the boxes fell onto a gravity conveyor. Workers would then cut the bands, open the boxes and push the contents onto a sorting conveyor. Then, these bottles would travel down the conveyor to the filling line to receive the product.
The company wanted to be able to insert the load and tip it down, then have the empty bottles move to the filling line — all with as little human intervention as possible. Essentially, the three problems we needed to solve were speed, safety and line throughput.
Our Solution
This application was unique for us — we’ve done 90-degree tippers in the past that would palletize the product onto a 90-degree table and then stand it up onto a pallet, but it’s rare that a client would want a machine to de-palletize product. Usually, this would require a standalone machine, but Nestlé wanted us to expand this process of tipping and conveying the load into a fully automated solution.
We used fairly simple automation here to lay the stack of boxes down, convey them out of the machine and separate the layers onto an adjacent conveyor. The operator could then open the boxes without reaching, stretching or straining. Furthermore the area was less cluttered and it was now far easier to dump the empty bottles onto the sorting conveyor which feeds into the filling area. This new process significantly improved line speed, improved worker ergonomics while allowing employees to focus on more delicate tasks in other areas.
Nestlé has very high safety specifications, so we had to add extra protections that met their standards. We installed hard guarding — in this case, fencing around the line — and light curtains at the entry and exit. While product can pass through these curtains without interruption, if a person attempts to enter the area, the system shuts down to keep them safe.
Contact Cherry’s Industrial Equipment for More Information
We’ve been producing quality manufacturing automation for the food and beverage industry since 1983, and safety is always at the forefront of our products. You can rely on us to work with you to find the optimal solution for your facility — just explain what you need and let our expert team handle the details.
Feel free to call us at 800-350-0011 or submit our online contact form to request a quote today. We’re happy to answer any questions you may have, whether you want to inquire about a specific product or discuss custom-engineered solutions.