Controller has the right recipe for Morrells

A recipe management system from Sartorius has put the shine on a vessel weighing application at Morrells Woodfinishes in Stockport.

A recipe management system from Sartorius has put the shine on a vessel weighing application at Morrells Woodfinishes in Stockport.

Morrells Woodfinishes was founded in 1902 by Frank Thomas Morrell.

With its origins in the manufacture of polishes for the French polishing industry, it has grown over the last 100 years to become the largest independent supplier to the UK surface coatings industry.

The company has expanded to form a group consisting of the main manufacturing site at Woodley, Stockport and main distribution sites in London and Dublin, with a further 15 branches positioned throughout the UK.

The company has also purchased a second manufacturing site in Tournus, France which manufactures products for the wood, metal, glass and plastic coatings industry.

In the UK Morrells produces surface coatings for interior wooden furniture, flooring and shop fitting, including solvent based products, water-based products and more recently UV products.

The majority of products are produced in either 5 or 25-litre containers, and Morrells generally works to next-day delivery.

The engineering department at Morrells faced a significant challenge when it decided to upgrade its Waterbase and UV manufacturing department.

The project was driven partly by a requirement to improve efficiency and also to show the company's commitment towards using and producing environmentally friendly products to reduce emissions from their plant, in line with the Environmental Protection Act (EPA).

The UV and Waterbase production area at Morrells is based around four vessels, ranging from 500 to 4000 litres.

Morrells wanted a complete solution to include filling control, vessel and tank weighing, platform scales, high-resolution bench scales and also a recipe management application for automated batching of products from the vessels.

The solution from Sartorius was based around the GWT PR1713 controller, which could be preprogrammed with batching or filling software as required and could fulfil all the applications required by Morrells.

Following successful trials of the controller and integration of the controller into filling machines, the production staff at Morrells agreed that the controllers were easy to use and offered excellent clarity with large display icons.

The engineers also found the PR1713, with its human readable menu system and PLC language, to be user friendly during the installation process.

Following the initial installations of the PR1713, the four vessels in the UV/Waterbase production area were all connected to PR1713 controllers via Ethernet connection to provide a local area network control system.

All vessels were linked into the GWT PR1740 PC based recipe/batching management system, as was an additional platform scale.

The system has allowed Morrells to increase its Waterbase capacity from 4000 to 13,000 litres per day, with excellent reproducibility of batches.

The extra benefits associated with PC based recipe/batching control and the reporting element of the software give Morrells a real time view of the process and material usage at a glance.

The vessels were fitted with PR6211 load cells from Sartorius.

These cells have a low profile design and are easy to install in a limited space.

In addition they are of full stainless-steel construction, hermetically sealed to IP68.

With a wide temperature operating range, resistance to vibration and with integrated overload protection these load cell were ideally suited to the Morrells application.

Where mixing is occurring within the vessels, they have found that at low speeds the weighing readings remain stable, even during the mixing process.

In addition the matched load cell outputs allow for easy corner adjustment and when combined with the A/D convertor in the PR1713 terminal provide a high accuracy weighing system.

Engineering Manager David Clayton explained what a difference the new weighing system has made.

"On this project, and also on subsequent projects, the GWT equipment has met and exceeded our expectations.

We have been able to reduce the manpower required for this process, which means greater efficiency and cost savings.

We've also found the after sales support to be excellent with spare parts and technical back up easily available".

Morrells now has 12 of the PR1713 controllers on site, and plans to use the same system when it adds two additional vessels in the near future, so it can continue to provide the highest quality products to its customers, from the French polisher working from his garden shed to the UK's large furniture manufacturer.

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