Chilled room job impresses
January 1st 2010 CKF Systems was recently selected to
provide a bespoke handling system
for a range of packaged products in a
chilled room environment. Specific
challenges included a high speed
flow rate coupled with the need for
an intelligent in-line buffer storage
facility based on FIFO principle.
The established buffer facilities
were evaluated and deemed
unsuitable. CKF designed a unique
handling/buffer system
incorporating a multi-lane spiral
elevator (with four independently
driven lines around a common
cover) linked to a 1:4 diverter at the
infeed and a 4:1 combiner at the
discharge end.
Under normal production
conditions product would be
dedicated to one lane of the spiral
for through flow of goods between
the respective packaging operations.
In the event of an upstream stoppage
the 1:4 diverter would redirect the
flow onto one of the other spiral
lanes, where products would
accumulate along the full length. As
each line is filled with product the
diverter will re-direct the flow on to
the next available lane. The
maximum storage capacity of the
system provides up to five minutes of
production. If all lanes are full and
the upstream stoppage has not been
resolved, a signal would be initiated
to stop the feed.
When the upstream stoppage has
been resolved each lane will
independently discharge at an
increased flow rate until the buffered
product has been depleted - at which
point the system will revert to a
single lane of flow at a nominal rate. More articles from CKF Systems Ltd: | 
