 Speed the feed and seed
January 1st 2010
Research by Copdock Mill, based in
Ipswich, a supplier of high quality
pet and animal feed to clients
throughout the South East and
Midlands, has proved that the
installation of four Rotoplat 507
pallet wrappers, from Aetna Group
UK, was an excellent investment.
Derrick Ladbrook, distribution
manager for Copdock Mill takes up
the story. "We handle 150 pallets a
day on average and, with 5,000 lines
at any one time, the number of
different products per pallet can vary
enormously. So we needed machines
which would be reliable, flexible and,
most importantly, easy to
programme for soft, hard or a
combination of products," he says.
The company researched various
suppliers, taking several different
makers' machines on trial, including
the Rotoplat. Four key programming
criteria were specified to reflect the
product mix:
gentle lay on force to protect soft
items such as hay or straw;
a tighter wrap for heavier sacked
items such as bird seed and bulk
feed;
a wrap to provide high security for
heavy or unstable items or
mixtures of many different items
on one pallet;
a short programme for low pallet
loads.
"Everything on the Rotoplats can
be set on the keyboard and the
programme locked," continues Mr
Ladbrook. "Some other machines we
tried used a potentiometer to adjust
the tension and wrap cycles and this
meant there was a risk that operators
could alter the programming,
causing delays and possibly unstable
or insecure loads."
"The machines have proved very
reliable," concludes Mr Ladbrook,
"We have only had one breakdown
all year and this was dealt with inside
24 hours." More articles from AETNA GROUP UK: | 
