Checkweighing Trays to Wrapper Infeed - System Spotlight

This system spotlight features an automated solution where we rotated trays of bread sticks 90 degrees and merged to a single lane and checked the weight of the trays. Light or heavy trays were diverted to a different lane to be corrected and the trays were merged again to a single lane. Finally the trays of bread sticks were metered out for feeding of a tray sealer.

Welcome to System Spotlight, giving you an in-depth look at Shuttleworth’s more advanced product handling systems and conveyor applications. In this video, we will showcase a solution for one of our customers that wanted a system that would automatically orient the product, check product weight, and infeed the approved products into a tray wrapper with minimal operators and minimal waste.

Foam trays are manually loaded with breadsticks with the long edge leading. The trays need to be re-oriented to short edge leading and combined into a single lane. This is accomplished with the use of pneumatic product stops, a speed change, in-surface mounted product sensors, along with a bump turn to change the tray orientation.

The conveyor is Shuttleworth’s Slip-Torque design that allows for low-pressure accumulation, eliminating damage to the fragile tray or product. Once combined, they travel across a check weigher. Proper weight trays travel straight ahead into the center lane. Underweight trays are transferred with a pneumatic diverter to either outside lane, where an operator adds product and manually re-checks the weight before letting the product continue down the lane.

With the correct weight product now in three lanes, pneumatic product stops, in-surface mounted sensors, and a speed change are used to once again combine the trays into a single lane. The trays travel around two ninety-degree turns, maintaining orientation, making a U-turn, and continue onto a Shuttleworth SmartFeed that properly spaces the trays for indexing onto a flight infeed for a tray wrapper.

For more information on Shuttleworth capabilities and solutions, please visit our website at Shuttleworth.com.