Screw jacks clean up on can washing savings
A
Power Jacks product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Nov 27, 2007
A canning company in the South of England has reported improved efficiencies achieved by a cost effective solution to update its can washing facility.
The Rexam Beverage Can UK plant in Milton Keynes has three aluminium can production lines.
All the differing sizes of cans, including 44, 50 and 56.8cl can be catered for on each production line.
The company recently reviewed its manufacturing practices with the assistance of a Power Jacks application engineer to invest in screw jack systems for the can washing area of the production.
Since then, the company's engineers have reported huge improvements.
These have included saving man-hours and lowering the downtime, crucial for increasing output.
Rexam is a global leader for the manufacture of cans for the soft drink, beer and lager markets.
The company has 16 plants scattered across Europe and Asia that combined supply the drinks industry with 22 billion cans every year, and continues to actively seek ways to increase its production levels.
The Milton Keynes (UK) plant is no different to many other facilities in the world.
For each different can size the washing facility was traditionally altered manually.
Changing the facility was a labour intensive task, taking on average 4h for six people to change one production line.
This has been successfully reduced to one person working for 20 minutes.
A major part of this transformation is down to the addition of screw jack systems from Power Jacks.
Before the upgrade when the can washer area on each line required to be changed for a run of different sized cans (taller or shorter) the conversion would be completed manually.
This was a costly process for the organisation.
Converting the line meant people with spanners climbing the machine framework, moving nuts up or down large-diameter threaded studs and, once positioned, locking them off with a second nut.
In lost production time alone this was a very time consuming, labour intensive and costly activity.
Ideally the conversion process to change can size needed to be automated; this would then bring about positive improvements in up time and line usage.
By means of a conveyor the cans travel through a six-stage process.
The first two stages are wash tanks, which use a solution of hydrofluoric acid to effectively etch the cans surface to provide a good clean keying surface for the print process.
The remaining four stages finish the process by washing and finally blow-drying the cans.
The solution was to automate the height adjustment of these last four stages using 28 screw jacks, each rated at 10kN load capacity, manufactured and supplied by Power Jacks.
From Power Jacks' standard programme of E-Series metric machine screw jacks the model TE2500 inverted translating screw jack was selected with some small customisations.
Stainless-steel components were used to suit the mildly corrosive application environment.
As well as the screw jacks, the scope of supply extended to cover the complete jacking system including 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", says Jim Brownrigg, Conversion Manager at the plant.
"The process now takes one person a mere 20 minutes".
In any production environment 5 hours and 40 minutes is a massive saving.
Success is thanks to some clear thinking from the Rexam plant engineers, the system integrator and Power Jacks Group engineers.
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