Detour please..........

When demands on production equipment are to run 3 shifts, its very difficult to carry out any effective maintenance regime. This was the challenge we were asked to solve by a large household cleaning product manufacture. There were two distanced product variations running on the line, A bottle with a trigger applicator and a refill bottle with a cap. Because of the layout of the production line All bottles had to travel through all the application machinery and stages even if they were not need. For example all bottles travelled around the rotary Trigger placer even if a trigger was not needed ie refill bottles. The result was that the trigger placer was constantly in operation wearing out guides and bearings even if it was not applying triggers and it was impossible to carry out maintenance when the line was running the refill bottle.

We came up with a solution to bypass the trigger placer

allowing the equipment to only be engaged when needed by also allow maintenance to be carried out in normal week days and not weekends/public holidays as was the normal routine at the time.