Customer Requirements
Skretting of Longridge, Lancashire, UK, a fish food manufacturer, had an ingredients handling system installed over 8 years ago by a specialist contractor who had included a simple bulk bag unloading arrangement which feed ingredients into an Aero Mechanical Conveyor.
1)The Aero Mechanical Conveyor lifts ingredients up to a horizontal screw conveyor feeding storage bunkers on the floor above.
2) It was the ‘simple’ bulk bag unloading arrangement that proved to be the bottleneck in the production process and the cause of constant frustration to operators.
3) Comprising just a lidded hopper with a spigot, where the neck of the bulk bag was attached, the simple bulk bag unloading arrangement required the a fork lift truck for the duration of discharge because there was no other means to support the bag.
4) In addition, an operator had to be on standby to aid the flow of poor flowing or compacted products.
Spiroflow Solutions
The Bulk Bag Unloader supplied to Skretting is specifically designed for applications with restricted headroom.
– The upper section which holds the bags is lifted off at its base and lowered to ground level.
– Full bags can be loaded onto the lifting frame by a fork lift where it is raised a little higher than the height of the bag and its extended lifting loops.
– Once the bag is safely in place, the top section is lifted via the fork channels at its base back on to the business section of the unloader and locked into place.
– There is a dust-tight docking seal between the upper and lower sections.
– An access door in the unloader hopper allows the bag to be untied without emissions or spillage.
– Once the bag is untied, flow begins and the door is closed.
– Pneumatically operated bag base massagers have been fitted to the lower half.
– This allows any poor flowing or compacted product and make it essential that the 2 sections of the unloader are locked together.
– The model T5 unloader boasts the same spring loaded side tension arms as all other models in the range and ensure complete unloading on one hand while preventing the neck of the bag sagging into the conveyor below.
The Results
It used to take them 25 to 30 minutes to unload each of the 11 ingredients used at Longridge. Now one ton bulk bags are unloaded in 5 minutes.
“There is just no comparison with the previous system. Our new Spiroflow unloader has enabled us to increase productivity and we can use the fork lift for other work while the bulk bags are being emptied – not that it takes long!” – Production Manager, Bill Edmonson.
