A filling, packing and palletising robot is the latest investment made by a UK-based chemical manufacturer as it continues its journey towards increased automation and site modernisation.

Airedale Group has invested £1.8million into a new production line that will revolutionise operations by increasing productivity and capacity.

Richard Ward, managing director at Airedale Group, explains: “Previously, we were fulfilling this area of the business manually which was labour intensive. We can now increase our small pack filling and packing production rates from 100 to 480 units per hour and re-deploy those resources to other areas of the business.

“The quality of our finished product will be greatly enhanced with consistent fill levels and uniform labelling and packaging. It also frees up manufacturing capacity and we can now pack products to order rather than holding stock on site which opens up valuable storage space.

“Additionally, we’re seeing less double handling of stock, fewer movements of product around site and reduced time needed to place it in racking saving many additional hours of labour.”

Kinetic energy produced when the line is braking is recovered and converted into re-usable electric power which means that energy consumption can be reduced in each cycle.

The filling, capping and labelling equipment was built in the UK, while the palletising system was imported from a specialist robotic palletiser manufacturer in Italy. The whole system is over 40 metres long and was created to Airedale Group’s specific requirements’ following several briefings and it took over a year to complete the bespoke design, build and installation process.

The project has also involved the installation of six 30,000 litre storage vessels, each standing at over six metres tall which feed products into the filling line.

Richard adds: “This is a hugely important milestone in our five-year plan, continuing our push to increase efficiency and quality through automation and modernisation of the site. It also forms an important part of our on-going ESG strategy.”