The aim of secondary packaging plants is to position food products, like e.g. pastries, chocolate and candies, into boxes, taking them from a conveyor belt. The typical configuration of these packaging plants consists of a set of parallel robot stations, acting pick and place cycles, and two aligned conveyors, which are devoted to transport the products and the boxes to be filled. Depending on the relative movement of the two conveyors, the plant operates in co-current or counter-current flow configuration. In nominal conditions, all incoming products are properly packaged by the robotic stations, which pick any product from the conveyor and place it in a free place in an incoming box. Undesired changes or perturbations in the products flow rate from its nominal value can lead to critical events, i.e. unpicked product at the end of the conveyor or not-completely filled boxes. This condition can be generated, for example, by the temporary stop or slow down of an upstream machinery, as well as by the temporary stop of a parallel robot. Even if the structure of the two types of plant, co-current or counter-current flows, are very similar, their behaviours in non-nominal or perturbed condition are significantly different. Aim of this paper is to develop a dynamic model that allows the simulation of long working sessions of packaging lines in the two plant configurations and then to evaluate the performances of the two systems in nominal and perturbed conditions. In particular, different input flow rates, whose time function is the sum of a constant value and a sinusoid or a filtered white noise, characterized by different amplitudes and periods have been taken into account for the performance evaluation. The simulator results to be a valid tool for packaging plant designers that can use it for properly sizing different components of the plant (number and model of the parallel robots, width and operating speed of the conveyors etc.)
Simulation based performance evaluation of co-current and counter-current flows secondary packaging plants for food product
COMBA, Lorenzo;GAY, Paolo
2010-01-01
Abstract
The aim of secondary packaging plants is to position food products, like e.g. pastries, chocolate and candies, into boxes, taking them from a conveyor belt. The typical configuration of these packaging plants consists of a set of parallel robot stations, acting pick and place cycles, and two aligned conveyors, which are devoted to transport the products and the boxes to be filled. Depending on the relative movement of the two conveyors, the plant operates in co-current or counter-current flow configuration. In nominal conditions, all incoming products are properly packaged by the robotic stations, which pick any product from the conveyor and place it in a free place in an incoming box. Undesired changes or perturbations in the products flow rate from its nominal value can lead to critical events, i.e. unpicked product at the end of the conveyor or not-completely filled boxes. This condition can be generated, for example, by the temporary stop or slow down of an upstream machinery, as well as by the temporary stop of a parallel robot. Even if the structure of the two types of plant, co-current or counter-current flows, are very similar, their behaviours in non-nominal or perturbed condition are significantly different. Aim of this paper is to develop a dynamic model that allows the simulation of long working sessions of packaging lines in the two plant configurations and then to evaluate the performances of the two systems in nominal and perturbed conditions. In particular, different input flow rates, whose time function is the sum of a constant value and a sinusoid or a filtered white noise, characterized by different amplitudes and periods have been taken into account for the performance evaluation. The simulator results to be a valid tool for packaging plant designers that can use it for properly sizing different components of the plant (number and model of the parallel robots, width and operating speed of the conveyors etc.)
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