Giant crate washer produced
2006-11-16
David Joshua
A PAARL company has produced a giant crate washer, capable of washing 5000 crates per hour, for one of South Africa’s biggest retailers.
The Akupak Crate Washer 5000 Mk2, capable of washing two types of crates at a rate of 5000 crates per hour, will be shipped to Woolworths in Gauteng.
“This machine is 24 metres long, 2,5metres wide and 2,7metres high structure. We added 11 metres of in feed conveyers to the machine and a 5metres exit slide away from it,” says Akura’s project and sales engineer Marius Hoffman.
Akura is building the crate washer for Woolworths after selling one to them four years ago wanting to supply them with a unit comparing with the best in the world.
The washer has a dedicated label remover suction box unit, ensuring that no labels will be trapped in the system.
Ninety sheets of stainless steel 304 are used for the carcass alone, together with three rotary screen filters.
A total of 430 metres of 16 mm diameter stainless steel rod are used for the guide rails.
“Our constant growth, and the belief in supporting local industries, led us ordering a second machine from Akura,” says De Wet Vosloo, Woolworths Equipment General Manager.
“Spending many hours and flights to Johannesburg, we did substantial research prior to the quoting stage, took the best features of different designs to eventually come up with a design that suited us both,” he said.
The added Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system means that the manager can now sit in his office and get valuable information from the machine.
The design of the double row chain (with slats every 600mm), makes it possible for the manager to see how many “empty” slats went through, thereby letting him determine the efficiency of a shift.
Information such as different temperature and levels in each individual tank, pressure in pipelines, water and gas consumption at any given time and most importantly the number of crates that go through in a specific time frame, all form part of the features.
The machine will be installed in City Deep by the end of this month, first to assist the current crate washers with the December rush. There after the washer will be re-installed at the new Woolworths campus in Midrand.
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