Winemaker boosts productivity with dry running bottling-line conveyor

Vincor Canada is the nation’s largest producer and marketer of wine and related products. After replacing a conveyor chain and wear track with a system that did not require soap-and-water lubrication, the company’s Quebec bottling operation significantly improved productivity, sanitation, maintenance costs and reliability.

The 200-foot bottling line runs at 70 fpm, producing about 86,000 bottles per shift, two shifts per day. The company faced a variety of issues with its three-year-old, low-friction acetal conveyor chain, primarily wet labels, mechanical reliability and soap costs.

Plant maintenance manager Jorge Larraguilbel says it also increased costs for preventive maintenance and spare drive components that degraded prematurely from constant exposure to soap and water. “The purchase of soap and water alone added about $3,400 to the annual operating cost of the line.”

Larraguilbel also notes issues with reliability and noise due to improperly designed 90-degree turns and curves. Chain wore out prematurely and could jump out of the track during a line re-start because the curves had too few magnets to hold the chain in place.

The company installed double-magnet curves made of ultra-low-friction materials as part of a complete changeover to dry running operation (Emerson Industrial Automation, emersonindustrial.com).

The double-magnet curves and reduced frictional resistance in the curves ended the problem of the chain jumping out of the track, says Larraguilbel.
“As a result, in the first six months after the changeover our production increased nearly 2%, adding about $26,000 to our output. This more than paid for the cost of the new chain. That’s only the beginning, too, because we have additional savings on soap, water, preventive maintenance, labels and spare parts inventory,” he says.

By eliminating the soap buildup that can breed bacteria, the company also facilitated its HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control points) certification while cutting noise levels and slip hazards.

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