Lipton Tea reduces label wastage
February 2011
Sensors & Transducers
Millions in savings due to Sick’s luminescence sensors.
In the Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai, Lipton Unilever operates the largest factory for teabag production in the Middle East – and with an output of 5 billion teabags a year, the second largest in the world. Processed by 43 teabag machines overall, the loose tea is filled at very high speed into the filter paper tubes, which are then sealed into teabags and provided with a string at the top used to tie the tea tag mechanically.
Each machine processes 16 rolls of labels a day. In doing so, it was necessary for process reasons to leave approximately 50 labels on the roll whenever rolls were changed. However, since sustainability is one of the central entrepreneurial values of Lipton Dubai, the search was on for a means to prevent this waste of more than 12,5 million labels a year.
Lipton Dubai benefits from Sick’s expertise
Lipton Dubai approached Sick with good reason to solve the problem. Sick had been working for many years with the manufacturer of the machines – the Teepack Company in Düsseldorf. As a result, personnel at the local branch were in a position to use their expertise and the broad sensor portfolio to address the requirements at Lipton individually, testing and assessing different sensor technologies in advance. Hence, they could guarantee an optimum sensor and service solution that was easy to integrate and a safe investment for the future.
Luminescence sensor makes end of the roll light up
As joint experiments conducted by Lipton Dubai and Sick showed in the run-up, luminescence sensors of the LUT9 series fulfilled the demands of reliable detection as well as space-saving integration into the machines in the best possible way. In harsh settings, they were able to detect the final label of each roll marked with luminophores reliably to allow productive use of all the labels, eliminating the previous waste and associate costs incurred at the plant.
For more information contact Sick Automation Southern Africa, +27 (0)11 472 3733, info@sickautomation.co.za, www.sickautomation.co.za
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