US Foam Processing Line

Case Study: US Foam Processing Line

This production line transports heavy duty foam blocks and buns (of various size, weight, type and density) across the factory using CTek straight-line belt conveyors, BC90 multi-directional rotation conveyors.

There was a desire to reduce labour of, and by, operators along the production line, as well as speeding up movement and transportation, whilst ensuring minimal health and safety risks. They also wanted to minimise space.

We presented our range of machines that meet those needs and found that they could also benefit from automating the line.

The machines they have include:

Heavy Duty CTek Belt-driven Straight-line conveyors and various BC90 90-degree Multi-directional conveyors.

This line also includes a Flip Up Tek conveyor extension to create a walkway allowing factory traffic to pass through.

The introduction of more conveyors into the line replaced the time consuming process used prior of using fork lift trucks and operators to move the blocks between machines. This risked damage to the product components, machines and health and safety of operators.

We presented our range of machines that meet those needs and found that they could also benefit from automating the line.

Once blocks are loaded onto the conveyor (shown at the top of the image), the operator is able to decide which line of conveyors the block follows, depending on the type of foam and it’s process. This can be either transportation to a saw, carousel or another step in the production process.

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Working with the management and operations team, we liaised via video calls to establish their requirements and matched this with a to-scale virtual walk-through of their current line, to identify how the machines would fit into the existing line and where they could use other conveyors from our range.

Our designers instigated the seamless addition to the line by ensuring minimal space wastage and the placement of multiple machines along the line to speed up various aspects. This assisted the installations for the fitters on-site and enabled seamless addition to their space, making the process and usage of space more efficient. The addition of the machines to do multiple functions of the process, meant that it was accurate, sped up and increased the amount of layered mattresses produced.