Multiple Lanes Gain in Productivity through Checkweighing Solution

Mettler-Toledo Garvens has designed a multiple-lane checkweigher to provide food and pharmaceutical manufacturers with a high-precision weighing and sorting system to facilitate faster production times and increased output.

Whereas standard applications can only be configured with two to four lanes, the Multi-lane Checkweigher has the capacity to inspect up to 1,500 packaged products per minute on up to 16 lanes for correct weight and fill levels, enabling manufacturers to boost throughput speeds.

“According to the European Commission, consumer confidence in both the Eurozone and the European Union has grown in recent months, as a result of sustained economic recovery in countries such as Germany, France and the UK. In addition, renewed demand for goods lead to cost pressure and higher operating efficiency requirements as consumers feel more comfortable spending money,” said Kerstin Bernhart, Marketing Manager, Mettler-Toledo Garvens. “To meet this demand, manufacturers need to find ways to increase production line output effectively. Checkweighing technologies, such as multi-lane applications, can help them achieve this objective through allowing higher production throughput rates and enabling greater control over products and costs.”

In addition to expanding capacities, the multi-lane checkweigher feedback control function minimises product weight errors through proactive feedback per lane or a combined feedback for all lanes to keep filler heads properly adjusted. This means adverse fill level trends can be corrected before they become a problem, minimising costly overfilling or unlawful underfilling in order to comply with metrology legislation, such as the European Commission, Measuring Instruments Directive (MID), 30 April 2004, based on International Organisation of Legal Metrology (OIML) guidelines.

Data collected by the Multi-lane Checkweigher is stored and accessed through a single, easy-to-use touchscreen terminal, providing separate statistics for each level as well as overall statistics. With a single terminal, all lines can be controlled and monitored at any time, which reduces inspection time for operators. The eradication of multiple user interfaces allows closer lane spacing, creating an enhanced solution with a much smaller footprint than traditional multiple line machines, saving space on the factory floor and reducing installation time and costs. For manufacturers already employing checkweighing and metal detection, Multi-lane CombiChecker replaces the need for separate machines as it combines checkweighing and metal detection capabilities, offering solutions to optimise footprint.

The Multi-lane Checkweigher comes with optional XS multi-lane software, which enables production lanes to work asynchronously and independently from one another. For example, manufacturers can now shut down an individual production lane through the software’s lane selective emergency run function while remaining lanes continue to operate as normal, ensuring that maintenance can be carried out with minimum production downtime. For system integrators, a checkweigher version with pulse-controlled intermittent weighing operation is also available.

Mettler-Toledo Garvens GmbH, +49 5121 933 0, kerstin.bernhart@mt.com, www.mt.com/pi.