A producer of food supplements requires a conveying line between its filling and packing plants. Small PET vials of different sizes are to be gathered into containers and then guided to the packing plant or alternatively to a manual workstation. These vials have a diameter of 23 to 35 mm and are output from the filling plant at a rate of 65 pieces per minute, lying on their side. The plant has to run in three-shift operation. The room available for the whole line is roughly six metres long and two metres wide. The line must include a curve to adapt to the existing hall layout. The vials are provided with labels. These labels must not be damaged while the vials are accumulated or when they are moved laterally.
The Versaflex chain conveyor system was the perfect solution for this task. The flat top chain is ideal for transporting small piece goods. Furthermore, this conveyor system design makes it easy to incorporate both straight sections and curved sections, and even allows for height differences. To ensure the labels are not damaged, a flocked flat top chain is used. At the line outfeed, the vials are separated and transferred onto the next conveyor. To group the vials together before making them available to the manual work station, they are stopped at the appropriate position and pushed crosswise onto an inclined tray. Depending on the package size, batches of 8 to 15 pieces in a row are formed here. To minimise back pressure along the line, the vials are also separated. This helps ensure they are not damaged. mk supplied the conveying line together with a small control unit for discharging the vials, so they can be discharged automatically.