At the Iuka, Mississippi, laminating plant of International Converter, plant managers had a problem. Workers lifting the 40-pound sacks of wax beads into melting tanks were experiencing way too many workplace injuries.
Risks included exertion, repetitive motion, awkward positions, and even falling hazards.
There had to be a better way than the existing process, in which the sacks of wax chips were piled onto pallets, which were then lifted 20 feet in the air to a work platform where two workers would lift the sacks, cut them open with utility knives, then dump them into the tanks — especially since the plant processed about 1,500 pounds of the wax beads per shift, three shifts per day, five days per week.
Vacuum Suction to the Rescue
That’s when International Converter called VAC-U-MAX, a company out of Belleville, New Jersey, which specializes in developing pneumatic solutions to improve operations, ergonomics and workflow.
VAC-U-MAX engineers went to work devising a solution that would increase safety while facilitating production at the laminating plant.
The wax chips dilemma posed a couple of unique issues. First, wax will melt at relatively low temperatures. So the VAC-U-MAX had to find a way to get the chips into the tanks from ground level while keeping them cool enough so that they wouldn’t melt and gum up the equipment.
The solution they came up with were “sparge rings”, which are transition pieces with small fittings that create positive pressure and are often used with heat-sensitive materials or vapor control.
Another problem was that while automatic bulk bag unloaders offered an effective solution, the relatively low volume of wax chips being loaded into the tanks didn’t justify their use. So instead, VAC-U-MAX recommended a wand that workers could use to suck the wax chips out of the sacks, rather than lifting them to the work platform and dumping them, eliminating many of the ergonomic and safety risks.
Controlling Spillage
Still a third challenge was spillage. Under the old system, some quantity of wax chips would inevitably be dropped on the floor, where they would become contaminated and no longer acceptable for use in the lamination process, which is often used on materials used for food storage.
Yet because the VAC-U-MAX pneumatic system is a closed loop, none of the wax chips were lost to spillage.
So far, the system seems to be working, according to Ryan Cooley, International Converter’s regional manager for environmental health and safety. While the cost savings hasn’t yet been calculated due to the system being so new, it already has significantly reduced risk, which was the company’s primary goal.
The reduced downtime and injury mitigation will easily pay for the system in a relatively short period of time, Cooley said.