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  • By Robin Maidment
    June 23, 2015

    UK productivity figures are frequently in the news, with the BBC recently reporting that we are, on average, 30% less productive per hour than workers in Germany, the US and France and 10% less than the average Italian. Lack of investment is often cited as a factor for our low productivity. In this context I was delighted to read the Project Profile of Synergy Health in Packaging News which described how productivity improvements were made following an investment, made in 2007, to eliminate waste and inconsistency by automating a manual case packing operation with a robotic case packer from Quin Systems. This was part of a wider investment in their production capabilities.

    The investment was reviewed by Packaging News in 2015  who talked to Garry Wilson, manufacturing director at Synergy Health, about why he initiated the project, the implementation and the long term impact. He explained that the equipment replaced a manual task that had required half a dozen operators in physically demanding jobs that involved lots of bending. Case packing has now become an automated operation manned by two people, allowing Synergy Health to redeploy operators onto more varied tasks.

    The equipment has proved to be robust and reliable and has reduced waste by improving the consistency of case packing.
    In addition, Wilson says the factory has seen considerable improvements in productivity.
    “The line is capable of 120 packs per minute and it has been demonstrated that it can achieve 90% of that figure,” he explains.
    Reliability of the case packer has been demonstrated by the fact that the line has been in constant operation for eight years.
    “We are running this case packing line six, sometimes seven days a week, and it has given good performance, which says a lot about the robustness of the equipment,” he adds.

    In addition to discussing the productivity improvements made and the speed and accuracy of the machine, this review highlighted the reliability and longevity of the solution – which can be a concern to people embarking on an automation project. If you would like to give me a call; I am always happy to discuss any end of line automation projects and talk about the experience that we have gained from implementations such as the one at Synergy Health.