Intralox OSG Helps Trans-Ocean Products Eliminate Downtime and Optimize Airflow

Customer Objectives 

World-class seafood processor Trans-Ocean Products has earned a reputation for offering top-quality products while meeting the industry’s highest food safety standards. The “work horse” freezer line for Trans-Ocean’s bagged imitation crab, however, was causing repeated problems for their maintenance team and hindering plant efficiency. The freezer line’s metal, friction-driven spiral was easily damaged, resulting in up to 60 hours of unscheduled downtime in just a three-month period. It also frequently caused the product to lift vertically, causing jams that halted production and required three hours of upstream product to be diverted and manually reprocessed. Further, the metal belting faced long lead times for replacement and was difficult to access for repairs. 

In addition to these costly and labor-intensive maintenance issues, Trans-Ocean’s spiral had inefficient vertical airflow, resulting in unevenly frozen or chilled products and leading to longer dwell times. Due to poor air balance, the spiral also experienced significant ice buildup in the summer months. This further delayed production for defrosting every time they alternated from freezer to chiller. 

Intralox Execution 

Trans-Ocean Products trusted Intralox to transform their struggling system into a reliable, long-term conditioning solution that would lower downtime and increase efficiency. They contacted our Optimization Services Group (OSG) to audit their existing operation, recommend changes, and implement the solution.

Intralox retrofit Trans-Ocean’s metal, friction-driven spiral to our friction-driven Series 2800 spiral belt through the OSG program. OSG also optimized the airflow for maximum freezing and chilling efficiency by converting their freezer from vertical to horizontal airflow. Implementation was painless and took just five days. 

Results 

The S2800 spiral belt has run consistently and reliably since its June 2023 installation, with zero crashes or unscheduled downtime. Additionally, by improving airflow and balance, airflow velocity has increased 219% (from 0.61 m/sec to 1.34 m/sec) and product retention/dwell time may be reduced by as much as 37%. Together with superior customer service, shorter lead times, and easier belt repairs, these reliability and airflow upgrades will meaningfully improve Trans-Ocean’s production efficiency, maintenance costs, and product quality.