A large global coffee and tea company improves the working conditions for their operators and increases the productivity

Background

A large global tea and coffee company active in more than 80 countries, wanted to convey coffee from the grinder to a sieve. Every time there was a stop at the grinder there was a large quantity of coffee that needed to be reclaimed. The operators had to move the coffee three floors above the starting point. This was cumbersome and took a long time. Also the weight of the bags was heavy and the operation was painful for operators. The distance from the exit of the grinder to the sieve is 9 meters vertical and 5 meters horizontal.

Solution

The first step was to add one vacuum conveyor piFLOW®p per grinder. At the time, the company only had one type of coffee. As the business grew, they added another type of coffee per grinder and are now using two vacuum conveyors per sieve, as it is one conveyor per product and sieve.

For this application we used two units of the piFLOW®p conveyor with the following configuration: P.VC2.P4.38.7.F.EP.QSS.0.FR.
We also had one piPREMIUM 400 vacuum pump, one wall mounting for pump, two pinch valves DN 50, and one Vortex valve (special diverter valve two ways) and also one feed station.

Result

With Piab’s solution, the process was much smoother and the customer increased their productivity i.e. much less downtime and, also the operators could be more efficient as they did not have to carry the bags all the way up the third floor.