FEATURE LOADING BAYS & DOORS
CURTAIN DOOR PERFORMS T
An aging access door was replaced at a busy contact lens manufacturer with a Sprint Indupart RUN door from sara LBS in one day over Christmas to minimise disruption to production
he manufacture of soft contact lenses and related products is a global
business. Driven by technical innovations to its products, excellent customer service is an absolute requirement because competition is intense. Production operations must be carried out in very clean conditions so automated high speed doors are used to separate manufacturing and materials handling functions. Such doors are opened and closed constantly during the working day so must be kept in good working order. When older doors became unreliable it is important to address the situation promptly. Such was the situation when Nick Cox of sara LBS was contacted by the lens manufacturer. “The door opening is relatively small at
1760mm wide and 1600mm high,” says Cox. “Through it pallets containing items such as bottles for contact lens fluids are passed by forklifts trucks for collection by production personnel. This happens many times each day so the door opens and closes frequently. The old door was becoming unreliable with age and would have to replace it before the situation became critical.” sara LBS is a loading bay specialist
company that supplies, installs and maintains loading bay equipment and high speed doors and roller shutter doors for industrial, clean room and food processing applications. It can supply individual products or offer a total package service in which it designs the loading bay, installs the equipment and provides long term maintenance. Its range includes industrial, roller shutter, high speed, curtain,
robust door design would be required. We knew that it was inevitable that from time to time the door would take a bump from a fork lift truck, a thought that led us to suggest a door from our Sprint Indupart RUN range in which the door curtain has ‘cogged’ side edges which allow the curtain to come away from the guides rails in the event of an impact to prevent damage (and reduce the risk of injury to personnel). The curtain automatically rethreads itself into the guide rails when it next opens.” The Sprint RUN range has further
features that seemed tailormade for this particular manufacturer. Its motor is inverter controlled which means the curtain door can accelerate up speeds of up to 2.5 m/s yet decelerate quickly to a safe and controlled stop. Thanks to the compact design of its frame and canopy the door is ideally suited to applications with restricted side or headroom.
transparent and thermally insulated doors. “Customer requirements are incredibly
varied, hence all our different door options,” says Cox. “At the lens factory the obvious need was for a fast acting door that could meet the requirement for frequent opening and closing. Working on from this idea we thought that if we could find a lightweight solution that required relatively little energy to open and close, this would add up to a significant cost saving over a busy working week. However, we had to ensure reliability so a
sara LBS is able to design and install customised doors which fit each project’s specific dimensional requirements and technical needs
CUSTOMISED SOLUTIONS sara LBS is able to design and install customised doors which fit each project’s specific dimensional requirements and technical needs and in a range of colours. The Sprint range is tested during manufacture to a high standard so has a proven reputation for reliability even in demanding high use applications. “Our Sprint doors were revolutionary
WHEELBLOCKER LOCKS VEHICLES SAFELY IN PLACE
Drive-away mistakes which occur when a vehicle leaves the loading bay too early are a major cause of accidents. The HSE estimates that around 15% of all workplace transport injuries happen during the unloading and loading process. Hörmann’s MWB Wheel-Blocking system has been designed to prevent such incidents. The manually-
operated system, locks lorries and trailers into place so that they cannot move until the unloading or loading process is complete. A rotating arm lock, fold-out support pedestal and
operating lever detect the working position of the wheels and an advanced LED sensor flashes green once the vehicle has been secured. The status of the lorry is then displayed in the hall along with a key switch that provides an override function for swap containers. Further safety features include an optional LED driveway. “We hope to see a dramatic reduction in loading
bay accidents as a result of introducing the Wheelblocker to the UK market.”says UK marketing manager David O’Mara.
Hörmann T: 01530 513000
S MARCH/APRIL 2017 | MATERIALS HANDLING & LOGISTICS 10
when they were introduced and have justifiably gone on to become so popular that they are seen as something of an industry standard. For the lens company sorting out all the design details for the new door was fairly quick. The next issue was to identify an installation date that would cause minimal disruption to the normal production routine of the site. “Because it was late in the year the
shutdown between Christmas and New Year was imminent and we identified 29 December as the best day. It normally takes just one day to install a Sprint door, but this gave us the luxury of being able to spill over to the next day if there were any problems such as delayed access to the site or abominable weather. Fortunately everything went exactly to plan and our installation team were home in plenty of time to see in the New Year.”
www.hormann.co.uk
sara LBS T: 01442 245577
www.saralbs.co.uk
/ MATERIALSHANDLINGLOGISTICS
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