7 minute read
BURKERT
For better control of productivity - Cooperation with ENILBIO
In terms of process control in hygienic applications, the tried-and-tested solutions are often preferred, thanks to their proven performance and guarantees they provide. ENILBIO, the National School of the Dairy Industry and Biotechnology in France, has chosen the universal control head Type 8681 from Bürkert to ensure the homogenisation of the control on one of its sites. Harmonisation of the 330 control heads led to simplified commissioning and maintenance, maintaining the longterm relationship between ENILBIO and Bürkert.
ENILBIO has the mission of training professionals and students from the agri-food industry with a major focus on the dairy sector and assuring the production of certain products such as cheese and beer. As such, the equipment employed in the company’s site is essential to the quality of its training and process verification.
As part of the renewal of its fleet of control heads, ENILBIO wanted to ensure the decentralised automation of hygienic valves and improve management of the automated processes by moving from wired communication to ASI (ASInterface) communications, to better control its production activity.
The tender process was concluded with Bürkert delivering the solution to homogenise control of the entire site, thanks to a single product, the Type 8681 universal head, which offered all the benefits expected by ENILBIO. These include improved automation of hygienic valves with a solution that integrates into the existing system, automatic configuration, instant visual diagnostics and even good cleanability of the product through a hygienic kit that can be adapted to the pneumatic actuator.
Bürkert’s products offer protection class 3 in accordance with DIN EN 61140, an ASI protocol, a robust inductive rod made entirely of stainless steel for longer service life, a visual indicator of the valve status that can be seen from 100 metres and even personalised training for the technical team, as well as for trainees.
For more information contact: sales.uk@bukert.com www.burkert.co.uk
The roll cage revolution
Roll cages and trolleys are a key link in the transfer of product to and from the production process and within intralogistics facilties. Automated guided vehicles (AGV’s) are sometimes used to support this activity but solutions that include cost effective automated FIFO buffering and queueing are few and far between.
Until now solutions to this problem have often been unwieldy, unreliable, and largely unaffordable. ICART tackles the problem in a revolutionary way. There are no conveyors or complex mechanisms spread around the production area. Instead, iCart Trucks move roll cages between processes and iCart shuttles transfer, buffer and queue trolleys without human involvement.
A lot of the success of iCart has been in its ability to handle short term storage and buffering as well as moving items from point to point. Most alternative storage systems are designed to hold items for days or weeks. With iCart the storage timescales are measured in minutes or hours.
The original iCart, developed 12 years ago, had many novel features including the ability to negotiate complex routes without user programming. Systems with a 1km route and 20 stop positions or stations were typically installed within a day. It has been successfully used around the world including the Giga-factory in the Nevada Desert. The second generation iCart, launched this year, has double the performance capability in terms of load, speed and manoeuvrability.
Trolley handling has always been a key feature of iCart. The iCart shuttle was specifically created to support buffering and queuing of trolleys. The iCart shuttle is a “game changer”. It can handle the buffering, queuing and transfer of trolleys and roll cages without the need for complex push-pull mechanisms or conveyors. It moves under the roll cage or trolley, using laser sensors to build a profile of the roll cage and can adjust its position and connection mechanisms accordingly. It can recognise gaps in the buffer and quickly move nearby trolleys to ensure there’s space available where needed. This profiling also enables it to compensate for significant variations in manufacturing tolerances. The shuttles are battery powered and automatically move to a floor mounted charging point when they have no work to do. Energy Costs are another key benefit, typically less than £75 per year.
The integration of truck and shuttle enables a complete hands-free load-unload solution. The shuttle can load and unload trolleys and roll cages automatically. Trolleys can be transferred in and out from the system either directly via shuttle buffers or at manual load unload stations.
The first application of iCart shuttles was in one of the largest mail centres in the UK over 3 years ago. Now shuttle buffers, up to 60m long, are in place in a variety of locations within the UK. Multiple shuttles sometimes work as a team within a single buffer passing work between each other to achieve high throughput. Multiple trolleys can be handled at the same time with loads of over 1 tonne. These systems manage, move and store trolleys without operator intervention saving thousands of miles of walking by operators every year.
iCartShuttleBuffers icart-logistics.com
RollCageRobotsforbufferinginlogisticsand manufacturingapplications.
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