The latest RBF1200Li filling lines have now left the Hamilton factory and will make their way down to the South Island where they will be installed in the new Fonterra Darfield plant currently under construction.

The shipment of these two new lines takes the total to 16 Limited Intervention lines supplied to Fonterra since its launch in 2004. With three more lines now underway for the stage 2 Darfield project, Fonterra now has a lot of experience to call on for new installations throughout its sites.

With shared learning in mind, Fonterra ensures that its staff are as involved in the project as they can be and take a pro-active approach to training and safety studies. The Darfield project was no exception and together with site operators and maintenance crews, the team at GEA Avapac worked through the design and operability of the machines to ensure that everyone is up to speed before the equipment arrives on site.

These machines are the latest version of the RBF1200Li and feature several improvements over previous models.

We have introduced a new vision system featuring a hi-res camera which is more tolerant of bag marking variations. A new neck-stretcher system has also been introduced which is taken from the latest RBF800Li filler enabling the RBF1200Li to better handle variable powder bulk densities and further reducing the need for operator setup pior to production.

An improved bag vibration station has also been introduced along with a new bag forming system to reduce air above the powder and thereby improve bag stacking performance

Auger seal monitoring has also been included in these fillers. This feature detects the loss of pressure evident when an auger seal fails thereby providing a warning to the operator to attend to the seal. This gives peace of mind that the integrity of the filling system is ensured and reduces the risk of product contamination from a damaged seal.

The improvements dont stop there. Our engineering team have paid much attention to safety in the design of the Limited Intervention machines with additional safety enhancements being introduced as they become available. For the Darfield machines, we have included a new safety circuit design utilising the latest monitoring system and we have also improved access around the filler by relocating the stairway give better access to the bag accumulation system.

The team at GEA Avapac are very much looking forward to starting up these machines later in the year when the new Darfield plant begins production.

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