Material handling and automation company, Simplimatic Automation, joined forces with sister company, Advantage Puck Technologies (APT), to create a highly-flexible material handling solution for a high-mix factory environment in Cincinnati. The Simplimatic system is designed to dramatically increase manufacturing throughput by using Simpli-Flex® conveyor, a powered lift gate, custom controls, and 10,305 custom molded pucks (huggers/carriers) designed and molded by APT.
The customer is creating a new production line designed to fill and cap 23 different personal care items. To accommodate this highly-flexible and unique request, APT is in the process of creating 23 custom molded carriers that will standardize the filling and capping height of these variably sized products.
“Most filling lines run a half dozen packages,” Simplimatic’s Regional Sales Manager, Craig Venskus, said. “Twenty-three packages is extraordinary and is arguably the most flexible program we have ever worked on.”
Personal care companies that fill multiple products on a single line often utilize pucks to reduce guiderail changes, filler changes, and capping changes. This standardization allows companies to save time and money by virtually eliminating costly changeover. Production lines that do not utilize pucks often require several line changeovers per day which collectively decrease output, and increase labor and other costs.
“The customer will save hundreds of thousands in change tooling because expensive production line equipment in a line running 23 different products would need to be changed based on each differing product size,” Venskus said. “Minimizing change tooling simultaneously minimizes change over time, meaning high asset utilizations.”
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