Cranes won't lose bottle
October 1st 2009 Excel Automation earlier this year
completed another major upgrade of
Chivas Brothers' Production Facility
in Dumbarton. Excel has refurbished
two cranes in a Bulk Glass Area,
which holds empty bottles for
brands such as Ballantine's, Beefeater
Gin and Malibu.
The two 28 year old Demag
manual cranes work in a single aisle,
depositing pallet loads of bottles,
which during transport and storage
are shrink-wrapped and strapped
onto pallets. Each crane is equipped
with a Remote Entry Module that
reaches into the racking ten pallets
deep to deposit two pallets, then
returns to the crane for the next two,
and so on. Pallet positions are
recorded so that they can be
retrieved in the correct order for
each of the eight de-palletising lines
that convey them to the bottling
plant.When pallets reach the depalletisers
the strapping and
wrapping is removed manually.
Excel has completed a
comprehensive mechanical upgrade
of both cranes, including the safety
systems; a new electrical control
system to convert the cranes to fully
automatic operation; and the
installation of a new Invar state-ofthe-
art warehouse inventory system
to sequence and control the picking
process. More articles from Excel Automation Ltd - in Liquidation: | 
