Material-handling solutions for the food and pharmaceutical industries

Interroll is expanding its existing product offering of conveyor solutions for additional industries with the launch of new platform technologies that meet stringent hygienic requirements.

Based on the benefits offered by Interroll’s globally successful technology platforms, the new Modular Hygienic Platform (MHP) will now also make available flexibly applicable modular solutions based on the principles of hygienic product design. The company says this makes it possible to significantly improve food safety and shelf life – while at the same time optimising energy and operational efficiency. The innovation offensive in this area is being launched with the Special Hygienic Conveyor (SHC) and the Ultra Hygienic Transfer (UHT).

The new SHC, for example, makes the added customer value offered by the globally popular MCP available to system integrators and users who have to meet particularly demanding hygiene requirements. This means that highly efficient, zero-pressure-accumulation material flows can now be implemented in food processing work processes, which until now have usually been used only in modern parcel centres or other distribution facilities.

The decentralised drive concept used in the SHC is said to save up to 50 percent energy in start-stop operation alone compared to centralized drive solutions that run continuously. At the same time, this results in a noise level that provides an improved working environment and reduced wear and tear when conveying standard E2 crates, where hygienic compromises are reduced.

With the modularity of the platform, which can, as always, be flexibly assembled and expanded from proven products as a plug-and-play modular solution, system integrators can handle both simpler and highly complex tasks in the automatic conveying of packaged food and other hygiene-sensitive products. Thus, with the SHC, the application spectrum ranges from autonomous conveyors without the use of a PLC to use in digitally networked Industry 4.0. environments.

In addition, the new conveyor enables precise positioning of the transported goods on the conveyor – an important performance feature, for example, in order to easily integrate labelling machines into the automatic flow of goods after the goods have been packaged without complex sensor technology.