GMP Pharmaceuticals recently installed a fully automated case packing and palletising solution that met a key challenge: a small footprint.
GMP Pharmaceuticals’ Girraween, NSW facility specialises in the manufacture and packaging of healthcare products, natural health and dairy products.
With escalating sales in the dairy product sector, GMP needed to improve output within their facility to match the predicted demand.
The dairy product line required an automated case packing and palletising solution but the space available was limited.
This meant that traditional solutions were not suitable and OEM Fibre King was approached to solve the problem.
Fibre King’s end-of-line solution for GMP Pharmaceuticals included two machine innovations that the packaging specialist has recently developed in response to common problems experienced by its customers, including a tight footprint.
One of the machines used was the next generation of Fibre King’s Top Loading RSC Case Packer; the other its new Compact Modular Palletiser (CMP).
The Compact Modular Palletiser (CMP) is a semi-automatic compact palletiser developed for low- to mid-speed palletising applications where space is at a premium.
The machine features a pick-and-place vacuum gripper which is entrusted to a cantilevered, gantry-style mechanical structure.
This mechanical structure, in conjunction with a multi axis-control system, allows the vacuum gripper to pick and accurately palletise the product.
The vacuum gripper head supports a fourth rotation axis to allow complete freedom of movement for a variety of palletising requirements.
The standard CMP supports the direct placement of pallets on the floor, inside the palletiser.
“As space was constrained, the facility could not enjoy the luxury of accumulating cases on a long conveying system,” explains James Windsor, MD of Fibre King. “This required the pallet changeover to be swift, so as not to stop the upstream equipment.”
The pallet changeover needed to be automatic so the options to include a dual-level infeed and outfeed pallet conveyor was ordered.
This option enables the operators to load empty pallets onto a low-level pallet infeed conveyor, and retrieve the completed pallets from the high-level pallet outfeed conveyor.
“With a dual-level pallet conveying system in place, the line can run continuously without being reliant on an operator being on permanent stand-by,” Windsor adds.
By working in partnership with GMP Pharmaceuticals, Fibre King provided a solution that improved both output and efficiencies.
