November 30, 2005

Nothing fishy about this discharger!

The operatives at fish food manufacturer Skretting think their 'Spiroflow' Bulk Bag Discharger is “wicked” - which, roughly translated, means they are delighted with it! It used to take around 30 minutes to discharge each of 11 ingredients used in the production process. Now, one tonne bulk bags (FIBC’s) are discharged in 5 minutes.

The bulk materials handling system at Skretting’s Longridge site was installed 8 years ago by a contractor who provided a simple bulk bag unloading arrangement to feed ingredients into a ‘Spiroflow’ Aero-Mechanical Conveyor. This conveyor lifts product up to a horizontal screw conveyor on the floor above. The screw conveyor has 11 outlets, each of which delivers ingredients to their storage bunkers. Weighed measures of ingredients are loaded into a mixer and, finally, the mixture is pelleted and packed ready for despatch.

The simple bulk bag unloading arrangement proved to be the bottleneck in the production process. A fork lift truck was required to support the bag during discharge and an operative had to stand by to aid the discharge of poor flowing or compacted products.

As Production Manager Bill Edmondson comments, “There is just no comparison with the previous system. Our new ‘Spiroflow’ Discharger has enabled us to increase productivity”.

At Skretting, there is a mezzanine floor above the bulk bag discharger which would make it impossible to lift full bags into the discharger safely. Spiroflow’s model T5 discharger is designed for restricted headrooms. It has two sections: the upper, which holds the bags, is lifted off and lowered to floor level. Full bags are loaded by fork lift. Once a bag is safely in place, the top section is lifted back on to the business section of the discharger. There is a dust-tight docking seal between the upper and lower sections. An access door in the discharger hopper allows the bag to be untied without emissions or spillage. Once the bag is untied, flow begins and this door is closed. Pneumatically operated bag massagers are fitted to the discharger base. They are there to deal with any products that are poor flowing or which have become compacted during transit.

Skretting is the UK’s and Ireland's largest aquaculture feeds producer. It is part of the Nutreco group of companies employing 12,000 people in 22 countries. At Longridge, the 30 employees produce an annual output of 24,000 tonnes. That’s around 100 tones per working day – no wonder they needed a more efficient bulk bag discharger!

For more information, please visit:

https://edir.bulk-online.com/profile/8623-spiroflow.htm

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