PCI provided engineering, programming, construction management, and start up services for two innovative conveyor retrofit projects in 2006. Mead Johnson Nutritionals produces Boost® adult nutritional products on its Impact bottling and packaging line located in the Evansville Supply Center. Filled plastic bottles are conveyed in stainless steel cassettes during the sterilization part of the bottling process. In areas throughout Impact where cassettes are conveyed on stainless steel rollers, significant wear was occurring to the roller surfaces and roller bearings were failing due to loss of lubrication. MJN was also experiencing slippage of cassettes along sloped sections of rubber-surfaced mat top chain.

To address the problems of roller wear and bearing failure, PCI redesigned a roller conveyor section to allow the use of plastic mat top chain. We reused all of the roller conveyor side rails and gearmotors. PCI designed drive shafts, sprockets, cross members, and bearings to fit within the existing side rails and support two strands of mat top chain. The existing bearings were replaced with pre-lubricated sealed bearing capable of direct wash down. The chain provided a much more stable conveying system with a less aggressive sliding friction relationship. These changes resulted in a conveying system with higher reliability, greater functionality, and longer life.

In areas where slippage was occurring, PCI utilized a similar approach as above and salvaged the conveyor side rails and drives. In this case, the cassette guides were also reused. The existing system utilized a rubber-surfaced mat top stainless steel chain. Due to return roller design, the chain had quickly become coated with steel fines thereby compromising the high friction rubber surface. Steel-on-steel wear had essentially covered all of the existing conveyor components with a layer of steel fines. PCI redesigned the conveyor drive system by incorporating all of the above described features from the roller conveyor conversion. We also replaced the rubber-surface stainless steel chain, with a lower durameter rubber surface on a plastic mat top chain. The incline and decline angles were also modified to increase the conveyor normal force. Transition sections were added to aid entry to and exit from the conveyor sections. These changes completely eliminated slippage.

These projects were designed under fast track schedules, installed during planned outages, and started up on time and within budget.