Safer salad handling
May 1st 2008 Project management, design and
solutions integration specialist,
FMA, has completed a significant
materials handling project for
Soleco UK's Florette pre-packed
salads production facility.
The company worked with
Florette, looking at the way it
handled raw
materials crates and
helping it to reduce
health and safety
issues previously
associated with the
working height of
pallets.
FMA installed four
new lifts and horizontal conveying
systems to maximise operator lines
and enable 'trimming' staff to
access full salad crates at a safe
height on a new mezzanine level.
The project, in which most of the
work was carried out overnight and
at weekends, was a turnkey
approach to evacuate empty crates
from the salad trimming
department to the raw materials
department. FMA was responsible
for all civils, white walling and
electrical installation.
A newly installed pallet lift was
designed to allow manual loading
of salad crates at ground floor level
by operators using electric pallet
trucks.
The lift has an automatic stop
facility when raised pallets reach
the correct working height on the
mezzanine.
Once the first layer of crates is
used on the pallet, the operator
presses the 'up' button for the lift to
bring the next layer to the right
working height. More articles from FMA Process Engineering Ltd: | 
