Unilever Leeds

High speed palletising of canned deodorants ensures overall cost savings

A fully automated palletising solution handles 500 canned deodorants per minute per production line at Unilever in Leeds. Unilever is a global market leader in the home and personal health care market. The plant in Leeds, the largest of its kind in Europe, has 300 employees and manufactures popular big-brand personal care brands, such as Dove, Sure, Axe and Lynx.

The previous palletiser installation was restricting potential line speed improvements, it was using outdated technology, with spares becoming more difficult to purchase. Additionally the manufacturer was no longer in business so there was no on site support available. Breakdown and maintenance times were also impacting on line outputs. Potential speed upgrades of 50% were needed but were not possible with the previous palletisers.

Gary Parkes, senior project manager at the site in Leeds, had experience of working with DAN-Palletiser from another similar project at Nestlé. He was convinced that DAN-Palletiser could provide consistent, high quality and high capacity equipment, and DAN-Palletiser became a Preferred Supplier with Unilever.

 

The palletising solution had to be implemented in four weeks, which was a great challenge due to the limited space available. However, with carefully prepared layouts and with the advantages of the high level production with the MK8/2 palletisers the challenges could be met. A close co-operation between Unilever and DAN-Palletiser ensured that the installation followed the time schedule 100%.

 

Two MK8/2 palletisers

The palletising solution is based on two MK8/2 palletisers, palletising from four lines at the same time. The canned deodorants arrive from the production lines packed in wrapped trays of 6 cans. The trays run through the packing lines in two levels, and in several pallet patterns, to the pallets.

 

The production feeds four different products to the palletisers at a time, and each palletiser palletises the products on two pallets, keeping the products separated. The pallets are placed on a transfer car that moves into position underneath the loading plates, depending on which product to load. The full pallets are transported on the pallet conveyors through a stretch wrapper, and are then ready for distribution.

 

2000 deodorants are being palletised every minute 24 hours a day 7 days

The maximum capacity is 500 canned deodorants per minute - per production line, which means that 2000 deodorants are being palletised every minute 24 hours a day 7 days a week. No other palletising solutions are able to handle this large capacity.

It is also possible to set up the palletisers for running several pallet types at the same time, such as Euro -pallets, Blue Euro pallets and Chep pallets, also organized in different colours.

 

Philip Jagger at Unilever explains that the DAN-Palletiser system ”Is an integral part of our production facility, providing us with a reliable, low maintenance system, which is capable of running at high speeds and which gives us considerable flexibility and functionality. DAN-Palletiser worked closely with us to develop the final solution that integrates extremely efficiently with other sections of our production facility and IT systems, giving us a high degree of automation and productivity in what is an increasingly competitive marketplace’”.

 

Further to the successful installation and cooperation in Leeds, Unilever Poland at the Katowice site has now purchased six fully automated MK3 palletisers from DAN-Palletiser.