Background
This company is a warehouse supplier to a leading grocery store chain in the Mid-Atlantic and East North Central United States. Specifically, the warehouse facility operates a piece-pick area where individual products are picked, placed in plastic totes, loaded onto trucks, and shipped to the various store locations to keep shelves stocked.
Parts Cleaning Challenge
The facility processes large quantities of grocery products for the distribution of both food and non-food items. These products are placed in various totes ranging in size from 19″ x 12″ x 7″ to 22″ x 16″ x 17″, many of which have attached flap lids.
The totes can accumulate factory dirt, dust, or contain spilled contents from broken bottles such as jelly or shampoo. Consequently, this foreign matter needs to be cleaned to prevent contamination of the grocery items.
The FDA has regulations in place regarding the distribution of food. As a result, the facility needed an efficient way to clean the large volume of these various-sized containers to be in compliance. They also wanted an exit conveyor to return the totes back towards the infeed station.
Solution/System
In this case, the solution was a model C-24 stainless steel conveyor washer with 24-inch wide flat-wire belting and a return conveyor belt. In addition, the belt has pushers every 24 inches to help move the totes through the system. Moreover, fixed side guide rails hold the lid flaps at a slight angle to promote water drainage. Furthermore, the system has three stages: wash, rinse, and heated dry with two air cannons in the dry module to blow standing water off the totes. The variable frequency drive (VFD) has a 1-10 FPM speed allowing the system to process one tote every 20 seconds (6 FPM). Also, the unit is fully insulated to conserve energy.
Other system features include:
- steam exhaust system
- electronic eye to sense parts
- locking door switches
- door safety switches
- marine clean-out door
- oil skimmer
- automatic timers
- multiple water level controls
Please contact us to learn more about cleaning applications and systems like this!
