There are many enterprises with harsh environments such as extreme cold or heat, very moist areas or very dusty and sandy areas. Q-System/Q-Transportmateriel have recently installed a pallet handling system at the foundry MT Jæger located in the Danish town of Naestved. Obviously, a sand foundry is a very harsh environment. The roller and chain conveyors are therefore subjected to heavy impact, but this is no problem as the conveyors are designed with covers around the vulnerable parts. They just need to be broomed now and then.
MT Jæger have existed for more than 70 years, yet it is a modern enterprise producing large and small series of aluminium items moulded in sand. Common to all products is an extreme focus on quality of material and moulding exactness. Being a supplier to Grundfos, MAN, Volvo and many other foreign enterprises these criteria are essential to MT Jæger. The purpose of the new conveyor system was to automate their HWS line for small and medium-sized series of sand-moulded aluminium and gun metal items.
The new conveyor system comprises 2 parallel roller conveyor lines, each with room for 4 EURO pallets. So, there can be totally 8 pallets on the lines. The two lines are connected by an integrated chain conveyor. Additionally, the plant comprises a roller conveyor which serves as a filling station, and a cart, which will bring the pallet with a full mould box from the filling station to the infeed conveyor and pick up empty pallets on the outfeed conveyor and bring them back to the filling station, hereby continuing the cycle. The mould box with the model is filled with a special type of sand on the filling station. When ready, it is automatically transported to the infeed conveyor by the cart, which runs on rails. The sand will harden on the four infeed conveyors, and the pallets will step one pallet space ahead after a certain number of minutes, which is defined using the operator panel on the control cabinet. The pallet with the now hardened mould is then transferred to the outfeed conveyor via the transverse chain conveyor. The mould box is then removed and by pressing a button on the panel the operator orders the cart to pick-up the empty pallet and bring it back to the filling station. If the hardening time requires two throughputs, the operator will order the cart to pick-up the pallet and bring it back to the infeed conveyor. As not all items require the same amount of hardening time the operator can change the throughput time on the control panel. “The conveyor system has certainly streamlined our production process”, Erik Thorsen of MT Jæger tells, “previously we moved all mould boxes by hand pallet truck and lifting devices. So, the working environment and the production times are significantly improved. Vi considered different conveyor layouts and it has taken us some time to decide for the final design but we have had an excellent co-operation with Q-System and everything has gone quick and smooth, so we are absolutely satisfied with both the installation process and the conveyor system,” he concludes.
