Silgan: Plastic Parts Manufacturing Site

Starting in 2014, FloStor met with a primary Plastics Parts Manufacturer in the mid-west to start the development of an automated material handling system for their packaging requirements.

At that time, they had (24) machines each producing approximately 900 pieces a minute with case capacity of 1,800 pieces.

The existing system erected empty cartons, placed an inner liner (bag) that was cuffed over the outside and delivered to the fill stations on demand. Once the carton was filled, it was discharged to a manual workstation, where it was un-cuffed, sealed, labeled, palletized, and wrapped with plastic sheeting on the floor. Another operator would remove the full pallet and take it to the warehouse.

The operation at the time was running three shifts, with approximately 18 workers per shift. It was common that a carton destined for one customer ended up on another customer’s pallet. This created customer service issues.

During a series of design meetings with upper management, and constant input from the senior production manager, FloStor developed an automated process incorporating the existing box formers and bag inserter system and added a carton take-away conveyor system for the full cartons.

Cartons would discharge from the “fill” position, have a destination label automatically placed, then discharged directly onto the new conveyor system that would transport carton to a new “Bag Uncuffer” and Case Sealer for preparation for the final automation process. The finished cartons were robotically palletized onto one of (24) Twenty-Four palletizing stations.

Each palletizing station was supplied with empty pallets by an Automated Guided Vehicle and the full pallets would be retrieved by the AGV and delivered to another station where there were automated stretch wrappers to finish the process. Warehouse personnel managed the put away.

Because of growth, the palletizing area was extended to Thirty (30) robotic palletizing stations.

To summarize a simple ROI, the headcount on the production floor dropped from a high of eighteen (18) to five (5).

FloStor has since implemented three (3) more similar systems at other facilities.

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