Mississippi Lime Company
Slipstick Alterations Increase Productivity at No Parts Cost to Customer
A Ready to Eat Cereal Manufacturer increased capacity of processing equipment upstream of a previously installed Slipstick by 13% and needed to increase throughput capacity of the Slipstick without spending any money on parts or having to replace the conveyor.
This Slipstick was originally designed for a throughput capacity of 250 lb/min and the customer had already increased the capacity to 266 lb/min without making any changes to the Slipstick. To increase the throughput capacity beyond the 266 lb/min, it was recommended sloping the Slipstick conveyor downhill 1/2 degree by adjusting the suspension rods. The suspension rods are designed with +/-6” of vertical adjustment for ease of conveyor installation and leveling. Sloping the conveyor increased the product travel rate from the inlet to the drop gates feeding a series of surge bins allowing a higher throughput capacity without spending any money on parts to modify the conveyor.
The robust design of the Slipstick drive can handle increases to the original design capacity without any changes; however, if needed the drive weight stack can easily be increased in size. The long run investment in a larger heavy-duty horizontal motion conveyor outweighs those for a lighter-weight horizontal motion conveyor with a smaller drive size. A smaller drive size would not have been capable of handling the increased product capacity required for this application and the purchasing of a new drive or a complete new conveyor would have been necessary.
