CSL play it cool with Aryzta

Aryzta, a leading international bakery company, recently turned to CSL to provide a pallet conveyor system for use within a cold store environment.

Aryzta have gone from a single Irish bakery in the 1980s, to a worldwide corporation driving bakery innovation forward, with a main focus on speciality food and speciality baking.

An upgrade to a de-commissioned cold store, for one of their UK sites, was required to bring it back on line. The driving force was to bring the storage back in-house as subcontracted cold storage was an ever increasing cost. The natural decision was to invest in the site and utilise their own asset.

CSL were tasked to design, supply and install a pallet handling system, to handle a range of pallet types for weights up to 1500kg, that could operate in both cold store and ambient conditions whilst maintaining the standard design structure throughout. Part of the challenge was to work within the restrictions of the existing site layout.

Due to the step in building heights between the cold store and ambient area, the system, which was dual lane, each lane 12m long, had to be supported from a steel structure at 1000mm H.

The criteria was to provide a dual lane conveyor solution, that was fully reversible, to store pallets in the cold store and deliver into an ambient lobby area ready for loading onto refrigerated trailers. The cold store operated at -25°C and the Lobby area +8°C.

As part of the control function and to overcome the issues caused by cold store environments, such as condensation, which interferes with normal Photo Electric Cells (PECS), CSL employed the use of their specially designed sensor rollers. These sensor rollers replaced the use of normal PECs, used for detecting the presence of a pallet and providing a non-contact accumulation conveyor system. As the conveyor was reversible, two sensor rollers were used within each zone.

A main control panel was sited away from the main area, up in the control room, with a remote HMI positioned close the ambient Lobby area. A second remote panel was located within the cold store for dual function control.

As part of the process, CSL had to work and integrate with other suppliers to provide a turnkey solution, which included interfacing with an Air Curtain system and rapid shutter door. These interfaces were critical to ensuring the pallets were discharged in a sequenced and controlled manner, whilst maintaining the cold store temperature.

CSL delivered the project on time and on budget.

The Aryzta Project Manager commented “CSL provided a high level of design and technical support throughout the process and worked closely with Aryzta from start all the way through to the end of the installation. CSL delivered on time and provided an effective asset to our business”