One of the biggest issues in our industry is that automation is really hard to find in food processing; there aren’t a lot of US-based Manufacturers that are still building custom, dedicated equipment, and that is something that is really important to us here. We want to keep that Innovation here in the US to be able to keep our manufacturing sector really strong. So the SaddlePack taper is addressing a problem in the food packaging industry of being able to lift and tape packages so that people don’t have to hand tape them. The chicken enters on the two conveyors, and between the two conveyors there is a bar that picks up in the middle of the package; it lifts up, we come over to where the tape pullers have come out, grab a roll of tape, and set it into position. We drop it down; while it’s dropping down, we cut the tape so the tape is evenly spread over the side, and it comes out of the machine. Previously, we were doing our tape pulling operation with air cylinders. Moving to Linmot allowed us to remove about 50 different parts from the machine as well as reducing a lot of complexity for the end user because trying to pull tape with air evenly can be somewhat challenging. But once you put it in place, you hit start, it pulls tape every time exactly the same way. Having that on air before that involved shock absorbers and flow controls and regulators, and if it wasn’t adjusted right, it would smack into each side. So being able to put Linmot there really helped just make the machine more reliable. Part of the reason we went with Linmot is that the solutions they’re able to provide with these particular actuators; that they are full stainless steel, full washdown, full ip69k and that is a level of protection that not everyone is able to offer. The customer feedback from these has been amazing we installed this latest set at a plant and we were doing it in waves, and so after the first three came in, I kept having people come to me and say “Hey, when’s the taper for my line coming in?” Part of the reason why operators like working on our machines is because we put a lot of care and time into the design when maintenance is going to replace something it needs to be quick it needs to be easy. With our maintenance videos right there on the HMI you walk up to it, and you go all right, this is exactly through a step-by-step process I can see in person; I don’t need to go anywhere. It’s just right here on the machine. Because we are designing and building custom equipment, we rely on our vendors so much to bring us the best and latest technology cuz at the end of the day, we’re trying to come up with solutions that are better for our end user.
