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HARINERA LA META - Palletizing of wheat flour

The company Harinera La Meta belongs to the Vilafranquina group. Its main plant, located in the city of Lleida, currently has two automatic palletising lines supplied by TMI.

In La Meta there are two bag-packaging lines for filling paper valve sacks, consisting of 5 bag-packaging units installed in a 3+2 configuration. The two lines operate simultaneously, turning out around 1,500 sacks per hour, each line delivering the sacks to a different conveyor-belt circuit that carries the sacks to the palletiser.

The greatest difficulty of the project was designing the belt circuit and the delivery to the two palletisers, the conception of which sought the greatest possible versatility and flexibility.

By means of a series of strategically-placed sack diverters, either of the two transport lines can deliver sacks to either of the two palletisers.



A notable feature is the automatic adjustment of the two units for handling formats of 25 kg, 30 kg and 40 kg. All the elements likely to need adjustment are controlled by means of a touch screen and the changes of format are made in a matter of seconds. This automatic regulation is very useful in the milling industry, because flour factories customarily handle a large number of production batches but in small volumes, which requires the bag-packaging system to be as versatile and automated as possible in order to reduce batch-change times to a minimum.

Each palletiser is designed for a production of 1,600 sacks/hour.

They incorporate automatic dispensers for cardboard sheet onto the pallet.

Another extra feature of the palletisers of La Meta is their capacity to handle metal carts instead of wooden pallets. These carts are very useful for distributing the sacks in certain bakeries.