Customer success story | Mass Flow

Empowering the beverage industry to improve capacity and efficiency through the Apollo Mass Flow Spiral Conveyor!

The Food & Beverage (F&B) industry is highly dynamic and in a constant state of change. Companies are facing challenges such as cost reduction, contract management and demand management to minimize the impact of constantly shifting factors on their profitability. With the potential for high wastage, spoilage and inventory challenges, companies are on the hunt for a solution to increase the efficiency of their supply chain. Our customer in this article is a well-known Chinese brewery. In the recent years, the company grew rapidly through market expansion, expanding the production line, increasing the production capacity and the demand for automation technology.

Branch: Food & Beverage

Type of machine (s): Mass Flow Spiral Conveyor 2500-400

Type of products: Bottles

Country: China

Challenge: High capacity in narrow working space

The customer built a new production line in 2021, with a narrow working space of only 6 meters wide. Due to the limited space, they needed to achieve a space-saving vertical height decline of their products. At the same time, the brewery has high requirements regarding the automation level of the production line, hoping to break through the problems of low efficiency and high error rate of manual operations in the past. Their main goal was to create an intelligent production line with advanced technology and increase the conveying speed up to 78,000 bottles an hour.

Royal Apollo’s solution

The customer has side-clamp vertical conveyors in operation but needed a better solution with more space-savings, more capacity and less operational downtime. In order to help improve the quality and efficiency of the overall supply chain, Apollo VTS developed a Mass Flow Spiral Conveyor with the following advantages:

High conveying efficiency

The Apollo Mass Flow Spiral Conveyor reaches a maximum conveying efficiency of 120,000 bottles per hour, which easily meets the 78,000 bottles per hour requirements of the brewery. At the same time, unlike the multi-track and multi-chain design of the traditional spiral machine, the Apollo Mass Flow Spiral Conveyor uses a single slat and chain system. This reduces the speed difference between tracks during operation, effectively avoids the toppling of glass bottles and ensures a smooth transition between upstream and downstream conveyors connected to the Spiral Conveyors.

Small footprint, saving space

In such a limited warehouse space with a net width of 6 meters, the Mass Flow Spiral Conveyor completes the vertical descent of products in just a couple of meters, where the traditional incline conveyor belt will need 20 meters! This can effectively reduce the floor space and make full use of the depth space of the automated three-dimensional warehouse, thereby helping customers improve warehouse space utilization to the fullest.

Low friction, low noise, higher hygiene

Unlike sliding friction, the Apollo Mass Flow Spiral Conveyor is equipped with a guide rail system, where low-friction bearings run on, which only generates rolling friction. This means the machines run without lubrication and produces less operating noise. It is even much lower than the ambient noise of the customer's production line. The lack of lubrication required on the slats also mean less accumulation of dirt, resulting in a cleaner and more hygienic working environment for the beverage production line.

Good durability and low maintenance cost

The Apollo Mass Flow Spiral Conveyor is assembled with few parts, is easy to handle and is simple to clean and maintain. At the same time, the unique design of the slats ensure a smooth, stable and quiet continuous flow of the product with virtually no wear on the spiral, chain or slat. On average, the slats of the Spiral Conveyor can convey the distance equivalent to eight laps around the world during the entire life cycle of the machine! Overall, the superior product performance of the Mass Flow can greatly extend the service life of the machine and effectively reduce the maintenance and downtime costs of this brewery.

Easy to install

The Apollo Mass Flow Spiral Conveyors in this project can easily replace the pre-existing side-clamp vertical conveyors in the line, while handling different sizes and shapes of products without changing any parts on the machine, something the old side-clamp vertical conveyor could not do. In addition, all connections are made with modular design, connected by bolts and nuts instead of welding. The Spiral Conveyors were thus able to be brought into the installation area in pieces and quickly assembled on-site. The customer did not have to remove any walls or doorways and move any machines when bringing in the Apollo Spiral Conveyors, avoiding additional costs, machine downtime, and other hassles. This modular design is also convenient for customers if any need arises to modify the height or shape of the Spiral Conveyors in a later stage, without needing to purchase a brand-new replacement machine.

Royal APOLLO VTS helps customers to improve quality and efficiency

Apollo VTS has extensive project experience in the beverage industry and is one of the leading suppliers in this sector. With its smooth, efficient transport design and low maintenance costs, Apollo Mass Flow Spiral Conveyors easily meet the capacity needs of the beverage industry. Whether it is PET, cans, glass bottles, empty bottles, or full bottles, the Mass Flow Spiral Conveyor can quickly and smoothly convey them to different heights. Based on the intralogistics transportation needs of the beverage industry, the Royal Apollo Group will continue to improve the performance of vertical conveying solutions and help customers improve quality and efficiency of the supply chain!