A new high-speed Chronos BTH automatic packing system has been supplied to Veetee rice’s UK production facility at Rochester in Kent. The high-speed packing system features an innovative combination of a high speed open-mouth bagging system and a tubular form fill seal system complete with integrated check weigh and inspection systems including automatic reject of bags, automatic palletization and stretch hooding of finished pallets.
The installation was completed in 2011 and was part of Veetee Rice’s investment into a new UK packing operation and mill expansion. This saw its annual milling capacity increased to 125,000 tonnes and the new packing system handles a diverse range of bag types (including PE, paper, hessian and woven polypropylene), in sizes from 5 to 45kg and rates of up to 1,000 bags/hour.
Flexibility of operation was an important design feature, which saw the two different packing systems provided for pre-made bags or the form, fill and seal option; gusset reforming on the pre-made bags; plus various closing options including heat sealing or stitched sealing with crepe over taping.
To help meet Veetee Rice’s strict quality control procedures the packing system includes metal detector and reject conveyor; plus a high-level check-weigher and X-ray machine with reject conveyor.
The sealed bags are transferred to a high-level Chronos BTH PGB1000 palletizer in an adjacent warehouse, which allows optimum palletization to be achieved complete with bag overlapping for maximum load stability. The integral empty pallet magazine includes a PE bottom sheet dispenser and the whole palletizing system is capable of automatic operation with three different types/sizes of pallet. Line automation at Rochester was completed with the
utilization of a CHRONO-STRETCHTM RAINBOW — a stretch hooder, which operates with two different reels of films for the different sized pallets and changes automatically to accommodate the different sized pallets. Outloading of the hooded pallets can be carried out directly into the warehouse or onto a truck loading station.
Chronos BTH Limited incorporates Richard Simon Limited, Verville and Premier Tech Chronos – America for European spares, refurbishments, service, installation and commissioning.