There comes a time in the wine business when relying on a mobile wine bottling service just won’t cut it any longer. For McManis Family Winery of Ripon, CA, that time came a few years ago, and in fairly short order the firm had committed to the installation of a Superbloc filling system fromMBF。First introduced around 2007, the Superbloc is a compact, comprehensive, and customizable system that integrates rinser, filler, corker/capper, capsuler, and labeler in a single machine. The absence of conveyors and buffers helps reduce the space required for the overall operation.
自2014年安装超级博客以来，McManis Winery的大小是四倍的。因此，最终，SuperBloc的上游和下游的包装机械必须自动化，从2015年开始使用码垛机。次年不仅带来了空洞和全瓶的视觉检查设备，还为填充案例带来了视觉检查设备。然后去年来了一个抛光器，一个累积表，案例前，一些激光日期编码设备和案例包装器。包装运营总监Manny Moreno在他说的时候总结了它，“我们完全自动化了。”
As currently configured, the line begins with a low-level depalletizer fromEmmeti通过层横扫散装玻璃层，单个文件瓶子，使它们可以通过检查系统英国《金融时报》系统。The actual camera technology in this system comes from冒险家但是，FT系统将其集成到他们的解决方案中，并处理软件编程，瓶子处理框架和拒绝表。
“I like the way they’ve incorporated Cognex into their system,” says Moreno. “It lets us check for chipped finishes, chipped shoulders, cracks and foreign objects. It’s really thorough.”
瓶子现在进入SuperBloc，首先使用20头车站，用氮气冲洗每个瓶子。接下来，通过30喷嘴旋转站填充，但是在填充阀打开之前将另一个氮气喷射到瓶中。氮素给药最小化残留氧气，敌人对葡萄酒品质。
Cork or cap
下一步在SuperBloc上是愚蠢的或封盖，尽管McManis出来的大多数瓶子都有Stelvin螺纹帽。瓶子然后索引通过一个PE Labelerspressure-sensitive labeler integrated into the Superbloc system. Also integrated is aMacsalaser date coder, selected largely because of how cleanly and reliably it puts the born-on date on each bottle’s base.
Next is another inspection station from FT System. This time it’s checking for fill level, cap presence, cap quality, capsule presence, and label accuracy and positioning. “We want to make sure, among other things, that the operator didn’t put the wrong label on or that the roll of pressure-sensitive labels coming from the supplier has a missing or damaged label on it,” says Moreno.
Next is an Infinity accumulation table fromGarvey。Moreno表示，当指定这个特定的累积系统时，它的温柔的处理特征是关键。它提供了近7分钟的积累。“在我们在大约120瓶/分钟的情况下运行，那七分钟很多，”莫雷诺说。
Bottles exiting the Garvey accumulator move next into a lane divider that converts the single-lane flow into three across. Bottles then enter the Flex Loader case packer fromDelkor, where a reciprocating pick head with 24 pickers picks 24 bottles and strokes back to a position directly over the empty cases. The 24 bottles are lowered gently into the two cases that have been indexed into the loading station.
The Delkor Flex Loader relies on servo technology fromRockwell Automation。Before looking at its features and method of operation, it’s important to mention that McManis receives empty bottles in two very different formats. When the firm is contract filling for a customer, typically it’s corrugated reshippers in which the glass bottles arrive. When filling a McManis brand, it’s palletized bulk glass. The Emmeti depalletizer mentioned previously takes care of feeding bulk glass into the line. When reshippers are in play, they’re fed manually into a decaser from Orton. The bottles are bottoms up in the reshippers, and the reshippers are fed in upside down. Side grippers grab opposite sides of each reshipper and lift it, thus releasing 12 bottles right-side-up onto a discharge conveyor leading to a single-filer. The side grippers bring each empty reshipper to an overhead conveyor that leads to the infeed of the downstream case packer.
When bulk glass on pallets is in production, two other pieces of packaging equipment come into play: a corrugated case former fromDS史密斯and a partition inserter fromWayne Automation。
“If you look across the industry you’ll find most people are comfortable with a case erector,” says Moreno. “But the DS Smith equipment is not an erector. It’s a former, as it forms a case from a flat blank of double-wall corrugated that has no manufacturer’s joint. It’s actuated by 16 servo motors, so there is very little manual change of tooling required when going from one bottle shape to another. We only do 12-count cases, and all bottles are 750-mL. But we have four different bottle molds or shapes, including a reverse taper, a Bordeaux, and a claret. You choose the shape from a menu on the touch screen and nearly everything that needs to be adjusted, like the case-forming mandrel for example, is automatically adjusted.”
Material cost savings
Moreno表示另一个关键优势在于，与案例架设相比，壳体形成储蓄包装材料成本。“你没有支付供应商才能形成制造商的联合，”莫雷诺说。“这也很好，托盘上有更多的案例空白。”
Before moving into the Delkor Flex Loader, formed cases pause at a Wayne Automation partition inserter. “It’s a dual-head machine, so it operates pretty fast,” notes Moreno.
As for the Flex Loader, Moreno says it was selected partly because Delkor showed a willingness to customize certain aspects of the machine based on preferences McManis had.
“For one thing, nobody else seemed willing to make a case packer completely out of stainless steel, and we wanted stainless for washdown purposes,” says Moreno. “Also supplied on a custom basis is tempered glass guarding as opposed to the LEXAN or plexiglass so typically used. The glass is so much cleaner, and it doesn’t get scratched by washing procedures. Delkor even provided dual touch screen panels so that the operator doesn’t have to jump over a conveyor to get access to a touch screen control.”
麦克马尼斯的使用Reshippers在必要时做了另一个Delkor定制。这就是莫雷诺叫飞行开启者。“这是一个基本上是一个伺服驱动的皮瓣护发素，”莫雷诺说。“与由DS史密斯系统形成的盒子上的襟翼不同，Reshippers上的襟翼不会清脆。他们已经失去了记忆。因此，柔性装载机上会发生什么是，在主要襟翼犁过固定轨道之后，飞行开启器进入并打开了未成年人。然后是一个传感器，该传感器是部分确保每个案例都有一个分区，也检查以确保所有襟翼都打开。如果分区不存在或者襟翼失屋位置，则会自动拒绝这种情况，并从未使其到瓶子装载站。“退出Delkor Case Packer，瓦楞il案例从FT系统中传递了一个CheckWeigher，这是一个最终机会，以确保所有情况都能与案例正常。例如，如果缺少插入物或泄漏泄漏，则将拒绝这种情况。 Then comes a case sealer fromCombi Packagingthat uses hot-melt adhesive to close the top flaps. Like the upstream system from DS Smith, it uses an adhesive application system from诺森。Next is a print-and-apply labeler fromID技术coupled with a thermal-transfer printer fromSato在每种情况下，将角色包装条码标签放在每种情况下。“我们认为每次热转印印刷都是完美的，并且通过穿上角落缠绕，可以从两侧扫描案例，”Moreno说。
Now comes the fourth FT Systems inspection station in the line. This one is looking at the accuracy and legibility of the corner wrap label. Finally, palletizing is done by a哥伦比亚machine and stretch wrapping by a system from凤凰。Another thermal-transfer print-and-apply labeler from ID Technology/Sato gives each wrapped pallet a bar code label identifying the varietal, the born-on date, and the pallet number.
Looking back at the way in which the end-of-line automation went into production, Assistant Winemaker Justin McManis describes it this way. “Any time you start up multiple pieces of new machinery there are challenges involved. I think the biggest thing in this case was getting all the machines to talk to one another. But we had the right computer programmers in here making sure everything went smoothly. And fortunately, we had Manny Moreno overseeing it all.”
