This Friday Night was spent doing a Packing Machine Service rather than the BBQ in the sun and a couple of cold ones that I was looking forward to…
Instead, I found myself in the Big Skies of the Cambridgeshire Fens, supporting a manufacturer that was having some issues getting their packing machines service completed while working flat out during a busy production period.
This time of year is normally busy for them but this year due to the added demand from the COVID-19 lockdown they were experiencing increased demand even on top of their seasonal peak.
This left nowhere to go for maintenance to be done on the machines and their line efficiencies were suffering because of it.
We’ve had a relationship with them for a few years and made arrangements to assist them with routine servicing over the coming weeks during the evenings/nights.
On this site, they pack fruit for the supermarkets and have a number of Giro Bagger UB-65 these make the netted bags you find your Oranges and Lemons in.
They are quite a mechanical machine and really need regular attention to keep them running well and efficiently, there are lots of moving parts, including; bushes, linear bearings, shafts, etc that need Cleaning, Inspecting, and Lubricating – the residue from the Citrus also adds to the issue and make everything very sticky!
If the maintenance on these packing machines is kept up they run fairly well, which means more product out of the door for the manufacturer
Also by regularly getting “under the hood” we can notice problems before they become “show stoppers” such as this collapsed bearing on the outfeed conveyor – as I said before these machines haven’t seen much maintenance lately so ideally this would have been picked up a few weeks ago, as it happens the shaft may now need replacing as well.
A few hours were spent and this machine is good to go for another production run, cleaned and with some fresh grease on the shafts.
This factory has 6 of these UB-65 Giro Baggers so we’ll be heading over again next weekend on the next window to get some maintenance done.
Overall another successful job, a healthy machine ready to help feed the nation and a happy customer.
