Ergonomic Tray-Handling Solution Simplifies Cleaning and Maintenance

Customer Objectives

Galliance—the poultry division of Terrena, a leading French farming cooperative—supplies processed chicken products for several major French retail brands. Its slaughterhouse in Nueil-les-Aubiers processes 150,000 chickens per day, six days a week, across two 8-hour shifts per day.

The company was in search of a better rejecter solution for the checkweigher on its fresh-filet packing line. Its existing solution, a pusher arm with a stainless steel safety cover, made cleaning, maintenance, and other manual tasks more difficult for workers. In addition, Galliance planned to install a new tray sealer further downstream as part of its efforts to increase future throughput capacity. The pusher-arm rejecter would not be able to support this increased production.

Intralox Execution

Galliance needed a flexible, high-rate rejecter solution that could simplify cleaning and maintenance and improve ergonomic conditions for workers. The plant’s chosen solution, the Intralox Active Integrated Motion (AIM) Sorter Series 800, proved ideal for replacing a pusher arm at the checkweigher. A gentle and robust sorting solution, the AIM Sorter prevents the product damage, corrective labor, maintenance, and downtime associated with typical tray-pack sorting. It allows processors to increase throughput both at the site of the application and across the entire line. Simple and safe, AIM technology is optimized for washdown environments, which helps facilitate the sanitation process.

Results

Since its installation in June 2017, the AIM Sorter has simplified cleaning and maintenance, improved ergonomic conditions, and provided flexibility to handle various tray sizes. Combined with the new tray sealer, the AIM Sorter will enable Galliance to improve throughput from 1600 trays per hour to 2100—an increase of more than 31%.

Galliance Maintenance Manager Thierry Brisseau had this to say: "We were looking for an innovative solution that can help us maximize the throughput of our automated fresh chicken packaging line. The smart design of the AIM Sorter provides good flexibility and offers an ergonomic solution that simplifies our working station."