Reliable Beverage Palletising: Less Downtime for Tru Blu
Updated: 3 days ago
When your palletiser struggles with your product mix, the impact reaches beyond the end of the line.
Production delays put pressure on operators, disrupt schedules and make it harder to get finished product ready for dispatch. For beverage manufacturers, dependable palletising is essential to keeping the line moving.
Tru Blu Beverages needed a replacement for an unreliable system that was causing delays, particularly with smaller pack sizes. The new solution also needed to handle seven SKUs with different pallet patterns.
Fibre King supplied a customised CP30R mechanical palletiser to suit the existing layout, including a remote pallet dispenser.
The challenge: a palletiser that could handle the product mix
A palletising system needs to work with the products you actually run—across the full range of pack sizes and stacking patterns. If one format repeatedly causes problems, the time spent managing those interruptions can become part of the daily routine. As demand grows, that routine can become a bottleneck.
For Tru Blu, reliable handling across its required formats was a central part of the replacement brief.
The solution: automated case handling and pallet loading
The CP30R arranged incoming cases into rows and layers before loading them onto automatically supplied pallets. Completed pallets moved to an outfeed conveyor for forklift collection. A dedicated full-time machine operator was unnecessary, although forklift support remained essential for supplying empty pallets and removing completed loads. This distinction matters when planning automation: assess the complete workflow, including the tasks people will continue to perform around the machine.
The result: improved reliability and reduced downtime
“Tru Blu have a wide variety of palletising solutions across the business and of all the solutions present, the Fibre King machines have been installed for the longest time and have provided the best all-round experience from purchase, installation, operation, and maintenance throughout the years.”
“This new palletising solution has increased reliability and reduced downtime.” — David Pryor, Executive Director – Lean Manufacturing, Tru Blu Beverages
Installed at Bundamba in November 2020, the system addressed the previous machine’s limitations with smaller packs.
Choosing the right palletising approach
Mechanical and robotic palletising both have a place in beverage manufacturing. The decision should start with your production requirements. Consider your case dimensions, packaging stability, line speed, pallet patterns, available space and maintenance capability. A suitable system needs to support everyday operation as well as the demands of individual product formats.
Is your palletiser holding production back?
Tell us which formats cause problems, how fast your line needs to run and what site constraints you need to work around. Fibre King can assess your requirements and develop a practical palletising concept, with an indicative budget and delivery timeframe.
Discuss your palletising requirements with Fibre King.
