Competing in the global market means tackling the human resource challenge and improving efficiencies across the manufacturing process. One canning company in the South of England has reported their excitement at efficiencies achieved in both these areas by a cost effective solution to update their can washing facility.
At Rexam Beverage Can UK plant in Milton Keynes they have three aluminium can production lines. Each production line catersfor all the differing sizes of cans, including 44cl, 50cl and 56.8cl. They recently reviewed their manufacturing practice and made the decision, with the assistance of the Power Jacks Application Engineer to invest in screw jack systems for the can washing area of the production. They have since reported huge improvements. These have included saving man-hours and lowering the down time, crucial for increasing output and are extremely pleased with the recent financial benefits.
Rexam is an international leader when it comes to the manufacture of cans for the soft drinks, beers and lagers markets. The 16 plants scattered across Europe & Asia are supplying the drinks industry with 22 billion cans every year, and continue to actively seek ways to increase their production levels.
Their UK plant at Milton Keynes is no different to many other facilities around the world. Traditionally the washing facility was altered manually for each different can size. Changing the facility was a labour intensive task, taking on average 6 people, 4 hours to turnaround one production line. This has been successfully cut to 1 individual working on it for 20 minutes. A major part of this transformation is down to the addition of screw jack systems from Power Jacks.
Prior to the upgrade when the can washer area on each line required to be changed to accommodate a run of different sized cans (taller or shorter) the conversion would be completed manually. This process would be costly to the organisation. Converting the line meant men with spanners climbing the machine framework, running nuts up or down large diameter threaded studs and once positioned, locking them off with a second nut. A very time consuming, labour intensive and costly activity as far as lost production time is concerned.
If the conversion process to change can size could be automated, then this would bring about positive improvements in up time and line utilisation. The cans travel through a six-stage process by conveyor. Stages 1 and 2 are wash tanks, which contain a solution of Hydrofluoric acid used to effectively etch the cans surface to provide a good clean keying surface for the print process. The remaining stages in tanks 3 to 6 finish the process by washing and finally blow drying the cans.
The automated solution for height adjustment of tanks 3 to 6 uses 28 screw jacks each rated at 10kN load capacity, manufactured and supplied by Power Jacks Ltd. Model TE2500 inverted translating screw jacks were selected from Power Jacks standard program of E-Series Metric Machine Screw Jacks with some small customisations. Stainless steel components were used to suit the mildly corrosive application environment.
The scope of supply extended beyond the screw jacks, to include bevel gearboxes, drive shafts and couplings to ensure, consistent, repeatable and synchronised movement over the length and span of this washer line. “The improvement was dramatic”, commented Jim Brownrigg – Conversion Manager at the plant. “The process now takes 1 person a mere 20 minutes!” Needless to say, 5 hours and 40 minutes is a massive saving in any production environment. This success is thanks to some clear thinking from the Rexam plant engineers, their system integrator and Power Jacks Group engineers.