Avoid Downtime: Log and Monitor Tray Denesting Success Rate

Keeping track of the success rate of your tray denesting can give you valuable insight into identifying why problems arise, understanding what their consequences are, and finding solutions to how the running of production lines can be improved.

How does a tray denesting success rate of 99,96% sound to you? That is the success rate QUPAQ currently delivers at Norfersk in Norway. And out of the 0,04% errors that do occur, only a few incidents cause a production stop.

Food Manufacturing is a complex process. Scoping in on the tray denester in the packaging area, you will find that it may not be the most error-prone technology in the entire operation – it rarely is, due to a lot of factors. But it still makes a lot of sense to log and monitor the reasons for tray errors together with the daily count of trays denested to calculate the success rate.

Calculating the Success Rate

It is very easy to calculate the success rate: all you have to do is count the number of trays denested per day and the number of errors that occur per day. An example of this could be:

Trays denested: 43.314

Tray errors: 18

Success rate: 99,96% – 100-(18/(43314/100))

When logging errors you should group the incidents in how severe they were. Did they cause a minor delay or a full production stop? And, if it is possible, you should also log what may have caused the errors.

Altogether, this will give you valuable information for analyzing the behavior and success of your tray denester. And if you have a tray denester from QUPAQ – either INTRAY or ANYTRAY – we can use this information together to improve the operation.

However, you cannot use Norfersk’s number as a benchmark for your denester’s success rate. The success rate depends on a lot of different factors, all differing from company to company. Therefore, you can only measure your success rate based on the specific factors that apply to your company’s denester.

So, if you feel like the running of your production line could use an optimization after having calculated your success rate, you should of course seek inspiration in the best installations in operation. These improvements could include a change of trays, change of technology or change of capacity.

Servo-Driven Denesters Have Auto-Correct

If you consider changing your tray denester, firstly, you should know the metrics of your current installation. Secondly, you should know what goals you wish to set for the new one, and on which parameters these should function. Lastly, you should secure the log history for further dialogue.

If all your tray errors today cause a stop, we would recommend you to be looking towards servo-driven denesters like our INTRAY Smart Buffer – Servo. Servo-driven denesters like this have the ability to “rewind” tray faults and retry the process automatically, eliminating the need for human intervention. This feature ensures that your production line can continue running with minimal disruption, making it a remarkable auto-correct function that brings a lot of convenience.

In most cases tray errors occur due to a misalignment in the nested trays, perhaps due to a sudden convergence in the gap size between the trays. The cause of these errors could stem from the manufacturer, but they could also occur when loading trays into the denesting tool.

Trays often have coded orientations in the nests, which must be considered when a new nest is loaded on top of another. If the coding doesn’t match, it can cause misalignment. Here, sensors could be added to test and secure this when trays are loaded.

Likewise, if the nest in the denester is too high it can put too much weight and strain on the denesting tool, which could cause an error. Therefore, the employees who are feeding nests of trays to the denester should know the limits of the stacks.

If the denesting speed is tuned above what has been promised, it could also cause tray errors, as they may not be able to release and get away from the tool before a new tray is entering.

Lastly, the tool must be kept clean so there is nothing on the screws that could make the trays stick while denesting. Luckily, QUPAQ servo denesters are easy to clean with pressurized water. Regarding this, we also provide a cleaning tool for the Smart Tool, which can clean 2 Smart Tools in less than 5 minutes.