New palletizing solution increases employee efficiency and productivity

When Arcadia Farms was founded in 1939, it began as a first-generation dairy business. However, since then, it has grown into a major brand that provides a variety of non-carbonated juices, drinks and teas to club, drug, foodservice, mass and wholesale channels across the United States, in a 200,000-square-foot automated facility.

In response to this growth, in 2004, Arcadia sought a method to decrease fork truck traffic while also increasing efficiency. To achieve these goals, Arcadia employed a conveyor manufacturer, along with an integration partner, to develop a solution by using palletizing equipment: accumulation, transportation and turntables.

“Our first system that we had put in took us from approximately six people on a line down to three,” says James Ward, plant manager at Arcadia. “We went from 8,000 gallons of product to 16,000 once we had installed the system.”

Since Arcadia Farms was primarily concerned with maximizing its space to increase productivity, it also hired the manufacturer (and its integration partner) to create a multi-level system. The solution uses a filling operation for individual products, which are transported to a case pack as finished goods, as quality is consistently checked.

Gaps are pulled as the finished goods travel to the second level on the conveyor. Three lines transport cartons on the minimum-pressure accumulation conveyor, while the fourth line uses a zero-pressure conveyor to accumulate packaged cases.

Cartons and cases are then palletized and lowered to chain transfers. Zero-pressure, chain-driven live rollers accumulate prior to singulating the pallets to automated stretch wrappers. The pallets are then transported for pickup.

Arcadia maximized its space by using a multi-level system to transport and palletize the finished goods.

“We’re now serving 42 different DCs across the United States from this one facility—we could never have imagined [this] 75 years ago when we started the company, but we were able to do it with [the manufacturer] and our integration partner,” Arthur says.

Hytrol Conveyor Company
870-935-3700