| Automation of fibre addition |
As part of a risk assessment process, staff at this plant identified a series of potential hazards involved in the manual addition of polypropylene fibre bags to the mixer. In order to add fibre, the batcher had to leave his control room, descend ten steps, walk to the rear of the batch belt, ascend ten more steps, and then manually place the bags of fibre on the batch belt.
To reduce both the frequency and difficulty of this operation, the team fitted a carousel which could hold up to twenty fibre bags (enough for an entire day’s production) and would index by one bag each time a button was pressed in the control room. |