Wrabacon Helps Its Client Overcome Its Labor Shortage Challenge with an Innovative Idea

The Challenge

The numerous health benefits of fresh fruit are no secret. Low in calories and high in essential vitamins and minerals, fruits are a no-brainer as a snack or an additive to your favorite meals. The challenge, however, becomes keeping up with the high demand for these nutritious treats. To transport product in such bulk quantities, companies often turn to specially designed trays or boxes to help carry the load.

A company approached Wrabacon with an issue. Due to a labor shortage, the company was not able to hand stack and case pack their trays fast enough to meet demand. Wrabacon was up to the challenge, with an efficient, reliable solution.

The Wrabacon Solution

To fix this, Wrabacon custom designed and manufactured a 5-lane tray stacker to be used to receive trays from an existing dryer. The trays are 16.5” long x 12.5” wide and are produced at the rate of 25 per minute.

The trays exit an existing cold belt and transfer onto an accumulation belt and then onto the stacker infeed belt. The trays enter the accumulation conveyor which pulls a gap between trays. They then transfer to the stacker infeed belt which delivers the trays to each individual stacking module. Each stacker works independently from one another and stacks product on demand.

As the stacker continues to stack product, a top cylinder is continuously holding the stack in position. When the desired amount of product has been stacked, the plate/lift cylinder stays in the up position while air is applied to the top cylinder, pressing the stack. After pressing, the stack is pushed out of the stacker onto a conveyor. Once all 5 lanes have produced a stack of the desired quantity, the conveyor moves the product to a table for manual removal.

How Can Wrabacon Help You?

Wrabacon prides itself on developing innovative solutions to your challenges. Contact us today and let’s talk about your situation.

Watch the Video of Our Solution at Work