Fiberglass insulation plants operate 24/7. To keep up with production at the packaging line in its facility in Waxahachie, Texas, Owens Corning used to have operators manually feed insulation rolls into five retail bagging machines.

That all changed when the insulation maker implemented a sliding shoe sorter system (Automotion, 708-229-3700), one component of a larger automation project which is producing up to $1 million a year in savings.

"With the sortation system, we were able to automate the process and eliminate the need for manual packing," says Rob Kramer, a project engineer for Owens Corning. "That freed up operators and reduced our maintenance upkeep."

In the old system, banded rolls of insulation were fed by hand into one of the five machines where they were packaged in a poly bag.

Today, rolled and banded insulation is automatically fed onto a conveyor system. As the rolls travel down the conveyor, the operator has three options: rolls can be force fed to one of two automated packaging machines; the system can be programmed to alternate between the two machines; or the operator can bypass both machines and send the roll to a manual packaging station at the end of the conveyor line.

The sortation conveyor travels at 200 feet per minute, and can easily sort 18 rolls per minute.

Intelligence was built into the system so that if one of the packaging lines goes down, the system can automatically feed the machine with the empty magazine. The operator also has an override switch that allows him to choose any of the options.

Although the rolls measure 20- to 23-inches in diameter, Kramer says the shoe sorters have no trouble diverting them. "The sortation conveyor can handle rolls bunched together, just like it can pull/sort an individual box in a distribution center," Kramer says.

Once diverted, rolls are conveyed to an accumulation area before they are automatically fed into the packaging machine.

In addition to the savings produced by the system, Kramer believes automated sortation has created a safer working environment. "From a safety aspect, we've eliminated jobs that were ergonomically challenging," Kramer says. "Machines are doing those tasks now."