Line for sorting and storing chocolate truffles

PACKMASTER MULTIFUNCTIONAL AUTOMATED LINE
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SYSTEMS USED

Sensors: OMRON, FESTO
Control systems: OMRON, METALWORK, TURCK 
Software: individual control system based on OMRON SYSMAC STUDIO 
 

CHARACTERISTICS

The plant is designed as a single unit consisting of three basic nodes that connect the conveyor blocks. The device is connected to the output conveyor of the Mogul Bananas line. In this facility, customer products are conveyed directly on conveyor belts for further stacking or packaging processes.

Line description:

1) Interface: Mogul Bananas / PackMaster line, 2) Double-sided packer filling point: Bananas, 3) Retracking Conveyor 1, 4) Retracking Conveyor 2, 5) Banana Packer, 6) Input of packed Banana Boxes to the Collection Conveyor, 7) Export Conveyor of Banana Boxes to the Gluer, 8) Gluer of Banana Boxes, 9) Manual Palletizing of Banana Boxes, 10) Carton Bins with Infeed Conveyors, 11) Material Flow Guidance with Mantles, 12) Cardboard candy transfer point, 13) NOK candy unloading conveyor - REWORK, 14) Stacker, 15) Stack conveyor with lift, 16) Buffer conveyor with manual stack removal, 17) 3D manipulator, 18) Docking station for 2 rack placement, 19) PackMasters electrical power and control cabinets

BASIC FUNCTIONAL RECIPES OF THE EQUIPMENT:

Recipe 1 – transfer of products onto cartons and loading into rack carts
Individual batches of products (chocolate truffles) arrive at the line on conveyor belts in formations corresponding to the casting moulds. They are then separated from their original moulds within the line by a series of rattrack conveyors so that they can be transferred smoothly onto polycarbonate cartons. The cartons are placed in stacks in trays, from where they are separated by means of an extrusion mechanism and moved by a belt conveyor system to the position for transferring the products to the carton. The product cartons are then further stacked in five layers on top of each other and then transported by conveyor belts to a manipulator that places the finished product carton stacks into rack carts.
This formulation also allows for a technological variation that ensures that finished stacks of five filled stacked cartons can be exported by conveyor belt from the line directly to manual retrieval by an operator.

Recipe 2 – Bulk balancing of products into storage boxes
This recipe provides for bulk storage of products into crates. In this case, the functions of the retractors are disabled and the infeed conveyors transport the products at a constant speed to the point of transferring the products to the cartons. Here, the transfer technology is also blocked and the products fall spontaneously onto the exporting conveyor, which is equipped with an adjustable divider at the end and two positions for two storage boxes. After one of the boxes is filled, the operator uses the distributor to transfer the product stream to the second box and then exchanges the full box for an empty one for further filling.

Recipe 3 – manual packaging of Bananas
In the case of this recipe, only the front part of the line is used for semi-automatic packaging of the Bananas product. Just after the product enters the line, a sorting wedge is placed to direct the flow of Bananas from the previous production process to the operators on both sides of the line. They direct the products to the packers, which wrap the Bananas in primary packaging. The packaged products are then manually packed by the operators into cartons, which, once filled and closed, are placed on a gravity chute. After this, the boxes are moved onto a conveyor that transports them to the lower level of the line for final gluing, labeling and manual palletizing.
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