More export orders for bag filling equipment

Two recent examples of continuing overseas customer loyalty to Clyde's range of weighing equipment are demonstrated at Kenana Sugar in the Sudan and Khanh Hoa Sugar in Vietnam

Efficient and accurate bag filling plays an important role in today's modern food processing plants, in particular sugar processing.

Optimisation of product storage and distribution has a major impact on overall efficiency and therefore customers are increasingly looking for integrated systems which handle products throughout the filling process, from the feeding of product into the weighers, through to efficient palletising of filled bags, packs or sacks.

Clyde Materials Handling has built an enviable reputation for supplying bagging lines and equipment to all the world's leading sugar producers.

The company has no doubt that its success is founded on the excellent long term reliability and outstanding accuracy of its equipment; coupled with the high levels of service and support.

Where appropriate, the company takes full responsibility for co-ordinating the installation and commissioning of projects.

This approach has distinct benefits for the customer and avoids potential weak links in the process which can arise from equipment incompatibility.

Although bagging lines are typically based around standard equipment, each application is carefully tailor engineered to ensure that the resulting solution exactly meets both current and future operational demands.

Clyde's range of weighing equipment includes nett/gross open mouth and valve bagging weighers, belt weighers, throughput weighers, check-weighers, bulk weighers and blending lines, together with bag placers and palletisers which can be used to make up complete automated packing lines.

Indicative of their success in the sugar industry is the fact that companies keep coming back for new or replacement systems and equipment- in some cases up to 20 years after the first installation.

Two recent examples of continuing overseas customer loyalty, despite adverse currency exchange rates, are demonstrated at Kenana Sugar in the Sudan and Khanh Hoa Sugar in Vietnam.

Each plant has its own specific requirements which have to be catered for in terms of throughput and levels of automation.

Kenana is one of the world's largest white sugar producers with annual production running at 360,000 tonnes, supplying sugar to Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

In 1997, Clyde installed and commissioned two complete bagging lines to handle white sugar.

Each line incorporates the company's renowned stainless steel Richard Simon UBM nett weighers which are used to fill 25 kg bags at speeds of up to 15 bags a minute.

At the heart of each weigher is the company's tried and tested load cell module.

This provides bi-directional over load and side load protection for the hermetically sealed load cell giving the unit outstanding reliability in the harsh environment of Central Africa.

The lines at Kenana operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, which means that each weigher fills a staggering eight million bags a year.

Each extra gram of give-away, outside the accepted tolerances, equates to an annual give-away of eight tonnes per line! Kenana are so pleased with the overall reliability and performance of this system, that they have now taken delivery of four further bagging lines, giving them a total capacity of almost 50 million bags a year.

At Khanh Hoa Sugar, the first bagging line was installed in 1995 to bag granulated sugar.

Now, based on the success of this, Clyde has supplied three further manual bagging lines.

Sugar is gravity fed from inlet hoppers into UBM weighers to fill 50 kg open mouth bags at the rate of 12 bags per minute.

Filled bags are then conveyed through the stitching machines to waiting pallets.

However despite this customer loyalty, Clyde realises that it cannot afford to be complacent and is constantly striving to improve the diversity and performance of its product offering.

As Doug Hacking points out "Although we can supply a wide range of our own equipment, in order to maintain our leading position, we are forming strategic partnerships with leading suppliers of complementary handling equipment to offer enhanced solutions." In addition to fixed installations for bagging sugar, Clyde has also pioneered the development of mobile bagging units for use at ports, rail terminals or temporary use to supplement permanent bagging lines.

The ContainerPak design incorporates all the essential feeding and bagging equipment inside two standard 6 metre (20ft) shipping containers.

These can be readily transported by rail or sea to their required location and set up in less than 24 hours.

Such installations provide excellent flexibility in terms of product distribution and significantly reduce wharfage and demurrage costs when they are used for offloading ships.

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