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70% Increase in
Production Speed |
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Our Client:
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Unilever is one of the world's
largest consumer products companies with sales of 48.1 billion
Euro and 295,000 employees worldwide. The company produces and
markets a wide range of food, home & personal care products.
Unilever has hundreds of well-established brands, including
Lipton, Knorr, Flora, Persil, Comfort, Domestos, Slim Fast, Ben &
Jerry's, Iglos and Birds Eye Walls. The company has a significant
European presence. Europe represents 42 per cent of sales.
Unilever has more than 150 factories around Europe. Unilever
signed a contract with Omron as preferred supplier.
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Objective: |
Completely automated machine for pyramid
teabags
Unilever required for their Lipton factories a teabag-making
machine achieving a seventy per cent increase in production speed
and ensuring that each bag is fitted with a tread and label cut to
a precise length.
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Requirement:
The core of the machine is a large
slowly rotating drum, above which is a synchronized cutter. A
continuous ribbon of labels is fed through the cutter so that
individual labels "fall" into each slot in the drum as it rotates
beneath the cutter. The drum rotates the label to the next station,
where the thread is run across the label and sealed to it using an
ultrasonic 'welding' technique. Another servo axis then guides a broad
strip of special teabag paper (essentially not that different from
filter paper) across the thread and labels. Thread and paper are glued
firmly together at one single point, but otherwise only attached
loosely to each other.
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Omron Solutions:
All of these various axes are controlled
in synchronization, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Omron MC402E
motion control cards area fitted onto the PLCs, which provide overall
management of the machine. The PLCs also drive an NT series touch
screen display that allows operators to view the machine's settings
and production values and change them if necessary. The control system
is based exclusively on Omron equipment and includes amongst others
sensors, timers and relays.
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Unilever chose Omron
because:
Project leader for Unilever Research:
"Omron supplies an outstanding product at an attractive price. This is
equally true of the entire Omron range of automation and control
equipment, each of which comes in various sizes and capabilities. This
makes it possible to custom design any control system to suit specific
project needs. Furthermore, the breadth of the Omron range means that
everything can be kept under one roof."
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OMRON IA Global
