Silcia Flour - bulk BAG Filling line
Client
Adwan Chemical industries run 13 plants across the world producing high grade silica based minerals. The chemicals produced by Adwan are sold to a diverse group of industries including glass, ceramics, paper, textile, paints, pigments and coatings, plastics, water treatment, fracking, adhesives, detergents and pharmaceuticals.https://www.adwanchem.com/
Adwan has been a loyal, returning client of Webster Griffin with several separate orders for Big Bag Filling systems that have been placed over the years. Webster Griffin was selected to provide a system that could increase their output and production
Challenge
Growth in demand from India and China for their ultra-fine chemicals meant that Adwan needed to dramatically increase their processing capacity and achieve greater efficiency through economies of scale. Therefore, they decided to invest $20m in a new plant to quadruple throughput.
Adwan defined specific performance deliverables from their new packaging systems:
- Weight Accuracy – Adwan’s customers add products to a batch production process, therefore, bags of consistent weight are essential
- Adwan wanted to reduce the cost of packaging consumables (bags) and therefore wanted minimum wastage
- Pack & Pallet Integrity – their products must arrive in perfect condition – they are shipped across continents by road, rail and sea, therefore, bags must not leak and pallet loads must be stable and well wrapped
- Proposed equipment must be proven to handle abrasive silica based product and run in an inhospitable desert location where maximum daytime temperatures reach 50 degrees centigrade and there is a night time drop to 5-6 degrees meaning condensation is a risk
Solution
Considering the requirements presented by Adwan, Webster Griffin recommended a IBC-PF4 Big Bagging System with automatic ‘Self Adjusting’ for different bag sizes and ergonomically designed and self-releasing, swinging bag loop hooks to ensure high speed effortless bagging around the clock.
Within this system it also included:
- A Filling spout with manual locking ring to seal the bag neck during filling.
- An Avery Berkel electronic weighing controller.
- One heavy duty vibration table, to compact and settle the product inside the bag at different stages of the filling cycle.
- One heavy duty powered roller conveyor 1.75m long mounted on the filling machine.
- One main control system with Mitsubishi PLC for the above equipment.
- An empty pallet magazine to stack the pallets,
- Accumulating conveyors for 5 stacked pallets
Result
PE coated woven polypropylene bags with four support loops and central filling spout were used to fill 25 - 30 x 1000kg bags/hour. The product is weighed using an Avery Berkel weighing system to weigh and fill fine, free flowing product into the bags. This product comes from Adwans’ storage silo via a single screw feeder conveyor and slide valve supplied by Webster Griffin. The bags are finally conveyed to a warehouse where they stacked and ready for transportation, throughout Saudi Arabia and abroad.
Primary noticeable improvements included:
- Sustained continuous production around the clock enabling Adwan to adapt to customers increased demands.
- Big Bags are consistently well packed through the single screw feeder.
- Increased production due to an improvement in system design involving the addition of automatic bag loop hooks which make it much easier for the operator to apply the empty bags onto the machine.
- Reduced maintenance through the systems durability with the essential ability to operate efficiently even in dusty industrial environments.
- Adwan can now achieve a high throughput of 16 bags/ hour
- Increased automation allows labour to be freed up for other production tasks.
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