A successful fishy tale
19.02.08
Den Oever shrimp auction, a leading Dutch handling facility for the sorting, sifting and coating of shrimps has recently made vast improvements in how they process the shrimps from the moment they are unloaded from the fishing vessels right through to loading onto lorries.
The shrimps are unloaded from the shipping vessels in re-usable plastic open-top crates weighing up to 65 kgs. Depending on the trawler, the shrimp may be loose or in plastic bags. They are initially stored in cooling cells from where they need to be emptied into a chute on an upfeed conveyor for sifting, sorting and coating, before being repacked in smaller 25kg/55lb crates.
Until recently the crates were emptied manually by two operators picking up the crates and turning them over above the chute at a height of 1.3m/51". Palamatic/HPS Techniek B.V. were invited to find a suitable handling system to solve this manual handling issue. Issues to take into account included the work area being cold and very wet and all the equipment has to be hosed down and cleaned extensively as food is being handled.
The obvious solution was to select the easy to operate Palamatic vacuum tube lifter, supplied to a food grade stainless steel finish. A manually operated stainless steel gripper was fabricated by HPS, which grips the crates at their handles and features 180° manual rotation. All movements are hand operated and no additional power source is required. A unique automatic locking mechanism has been incorporated ensuring the operator can only release the crates in horizontal position.
The lifter has also been equipped with a quick release system to allow the operator to select either the crate gripper or a relatively simple but effective fork gripper if plastic sacks are to be handled.
The vacuum tube lifter is suspended from a 5m/195" x 5m/195" overhead crane system creating a working area of some 25 sqm. giving the operator ample space to unstack, empty and restack crates at optimum working speed.
The vacuum tube lifter supplied met all Health and Safety regulations and the working environment is improved significantly, meeting all the criteria set out by the customer.
Den Oever shrimp auction and its sister company Den Helder fish auction have been looking into finding a suitable solution for their handling problems for a number of years, both in the Netherlands and abroad. Their original enquiry came through the Palamatic UK website and was referred to the Dutch representation (HPS Techniek B.V.). After discussions and a test system the job was completed with a very positive outcome.
Currently a similar solution is being developed for the outfeed area of the processing line where two or three systems are required for picking up from the outfeed conveyors of the line and palletising. Due to this success other work areas and sites are now under review as well.
