Launched in 1996 in Hammond, IN, and relocated four years later to its current location in nearby Munster, 3 Floyds Brewing grew steadily in its first decade. Great beer and word of mouth—combined with being located just 60 miles east of metropolitan Chicago and a population in the range of 7 million—fueled this early growth, so that by 2006 the firm was producing around 4,600 hectoliters annually. But right about that time was when the Internet came into its own. When sites like ratebeer.com and beeradvocate.com started singing the praises of 3 Floyds’ pale ales, wheat beers, and a Russian imperial ale that can only be bought on the last Saturday of April, sales really took off. In fact, the Munster brewery produced something like 60,000 hectoliters of beer in 2016, more than a 10-fold growth over 10 years.
除了这里的几个季节性啤酒之外，3弗洛伊德现在在12盎司瓶子和22盎司瓶子中生产六瓶啤酒。到2012年，它变得非常清楚，现有的装瓶线，不再超过70 bpm，不再能够与啤酒厂的增长保持步伐。所以一个新的包装大厅被添加到现有的空间中，并进入它的交钥匙线克朗斯具有250 bpm的额定速度。
“理论上，这条线将在三班模式下每年瓶290,000升，”Head Brewer Chris Boggess说。“所以目前它过度升级。但是，我们认为远期有点重要，所以我们不必每隔几年安装另一行，而且我们使用的是我们使用的最佳技术。“
The turnkey Krones line begins with a Pressant Universal 1N bulk glass sweep-off depalletizer with low-level discharge onto a bulk-glass conveyor. The depalletizer is also equipped with a) vacuum cup pickup tooling that allows it to pick and stack the paperboard tier sheets that separate layers of glass and b) mechanical tooling for picking and stacking empty pallets.
Krones Glideliner平稳地将瓶子的质量降低到瓶子的单文件通道，这些瓶子被传送到卷筒/填料/瓶盖块中。就在这个块之前，瓶子通过了骨牌喷墨打印机，将批次编号放入瓶子肩部上的批次。
The monoblock system consists of a 44-head Moduljet rinser using water as the rinsing medium and a Modufill filler with 44 filling valves. “The filler gives us excellent values for oxygen pick-up, in the range of 50 parts per billion, coupled with very consistent fill levels,” says Travis Fasano, Packaging Manager at the Brewery. The short-tube, level-controlled filler with vent tubes operates with double pre-evacuation and what Krones calls an “interpolated CO2-flushing feature”—i.e., between the two pre-evacuations there is a CO2 flush. The filling valves are electro-pneumatically controlled. A monoblocked turret receives bottles from the filler via a starwheel transfer. It sorts and applies the crowns and then releases bottles to a discharge conveyor.
通过Krones Checkmat FM-X检查瓶子的正确填充水平，并立即进入克罗尼型冷胶贴标机。通过Checkmat E验证了正确的标签放置。通过标签提供标签内陆。
线尾包装
At this point it’s time for the end-of-line packaging done on the Krones Varioline. According to Fasano, the conveyor connection between filler and labeler will hold about 1,000 bottles in accumulation. And between the labeler and the Varioline, the accumulation capacity is about 2,000. “So running as we are at about 250 bottles/min, we have about four minutes to address a jam before machines start to stop,” says Fasano.
Varioline可能是植物中最令人印象深刻的机器。Varioline上的组件可以大大变化 - 当然，机器是如何获得其名称的。这一切都取决于应用程序所要求的。但基本上每个模块由钢基架，控制柜，龙门机器人组成，用于执行所有拣选和放置，以及伺服控制的夹板/飞行输送机。
根据Krones的Mark Forsberg，Varioline是六台机器，一体：载体射线，载体填充器，壳体竖立器，瓶子插入器，隔板插入器，壳体密封剂。因为在一台机器的帧内执行了许多功能，所以消除了从一台机器到另一台机器的传送带连接。因此，Forsberg说，需要75％的底部空间。他说，效率为97.5％。
在3个Floyds运行的是一个双模块系统，当填充24个计数案件时，可以进行近900瓶/分钟。配备齐全，系统可以处理850瓶/分钟。
模块1负责架设四个或六个包装板载体，将载体填充到波纹状情况下，并拾取并将瓶子放入那种情况下。另一个模块直立波纹托运人并用热熔粘合剂关闭它们。只需要一个操作员，操作员唯一的真正责任是用纸板载体和波纹情况喂养杂志。纸板载体来自图形包装，案件来自国际论文。
“这比我们曾经拥有的那么好，这在很大程度上是手动操作，”法萨诺说。“现在我们只做12盎司和22盎司的瓶子，但它也可以处理罐头。”Krones的空间可以填充到新线路中，所以一旦添加了更大的啤酒厂，罐头也将在Varioline上进行多次。他们将被包装在12个磁环绕式纸板上，然后将两个12包装放在瓦楞纸体中。
模块2中的案例在几个步骤中完成。第一个真空杯安装在架空龙门机器人上，从双胞胎杂志挑选两个扁平盒坯;当壳体被拉入底部密封站时，它们都打开;一旦进入封口站，底部薄片又是热熔粘胶诺森单元。
第二个龙门式机器人现在使用真空杯grab the two cases by the folded and sealed minor flaps, lift them, and place them into a station where the major flaps are folded and glued. The same gantry robot then lifts the two cases, rotates them 45 degrees, and places them on a flighted conveyor that takes them off at a right angle in a direction we’ll call south so that they can have paperboard basket-style carriers inserted into them on nearby Module 1.
Meanwhile, on Module 1, vacuum cups on a gantry robot pick eight flat paperboard basket-style carriers from a magazine feed. The blanks are carried a short distance to a series of plates riddled with their own vaccum cups. So as the gantry robots retract in an upward motion, the bottom sides of the eight paperboard carriers are held securely by vacuum cups while the tops are held equally secure. As a result, the eight carriers are all popped open. Once they are open, the vacuum cups on the overhead gantry robot release and the plates holding the now erected carriers rotate 45 degrees so that the carrier handles all face upward. At this point, a second gantry robot mechanically picks all eight erected paperboard carriers and stuffs them into the corrugated cases that have been erected over on Module 2.
一旦案件有必要的纸板篮式架架载体，它们就会推进到一个飞行的输送机中，在我们将北方呼叫的方向上运行，换句话说，与他们输入的方向相反。另一个龙门机器人从连续运动进料输送机中挑选24瓶，并将其放入载体填充的瓦楞纸箱中。然后将该情况以北方向索引到另一个车站，其中另一个顶置龙门机器人用封闭顶部襟翼的工具，包括热熔粘合剂。
首先
3 Floyds的Varioline代表Pro系列的首个商业安装，这简化了往复式梭式车辆的系统来处理，以便移动的案例的移动，这些车厢各自通过其自己的伺服电机单独控制的飞行输送机。在过去，如果案例尺寸发生变化，则必须将适当的往复式往返车推车放置到位，并且旧的往复式。现在，它只是进入触摸屏控制器并从菜单中摘涉及的菜单。伺服电机自动将航班移动到他们需要的地方。
就像伺服电机一样，驱动Varioline上的许多架空机器人，飞行输送机上的伺服电机来自SEW并且驱动器来自B＆R.，虽然PLC来自罗克韦尔。Another supplier of automation technology playing a big role in the Varioline system isFesto., whose pneumatic valves, actuators, and vacuum technology is represented in abundance.
Pro系列的另一种改进是瓶子进给现在是平滑，连续的运动而不是间歇性。大多数间歇运动员进入的缺点是作为背部压力构建，瓶子处理可能会受到损害。
在Varioline中没有改变是什么，它在首次出现时使其成为一种突出机器，即其多功能性。如前所述，3个Floyds将很快将在这台机器上进行多包罐。已经使用机器已用于以下内容：
• 12-oz bottles in two six-count paperboard carriers or four six-count paperboard carriers per case
•四码纸板载体中的12盎司瓶子，案例包装了三个运营商或六个运营商
•22盎司瓶子由12计数案例中的纸板分隔器分开
Varioline还将处理缠绕病例，尽管3个Floyds不会产生任何目前。
所有这种多功能性的一个关键是快速变化的头部，可以轻松地从顶置龙门机器人的末端拆下，并安装在轮式机架上，以便可以在机器人上安装下一个容器格式的快速变化头。同样有帮助的是，保持纸板载体和波纹情况的杂志是模块化的。要从12到24瓶外壳中，叉车用于将整个杂志模块抬起芝麻水，并将新的盒模块放在适当位置。
一旦罐头设备 - 也来自克朗斯进入图片，事情应该在3弗洛伊德甚至更有趣。“我们必须添加一些传送带连接，我们还计划自动化码垛，”Boggess说。
此外，在绘图板上是一个新的重建线，一个扩大的酿酒厂，以及威士忌和杜松子酒的全新酿酒厂。野心？可能是吧。但是还可以从啤酒厂一直以来“这不正常”的啤酒厂来看什么。
