Research Products, Inc. Increases Production 400%

Fire Causes Dilemma
After a fire destroyed the manufacturing process for a food additive company, the company asked itself:

• Do we rebuild using proven equipment similar to what we had?
• Do we look at other options and automate with the future in mind?

Even more challenging is handling the product — super fine particles that have the physical properties of water. Have you ever created ripples by throwing a rock into a pond? Similarly, this product will ripple and splash just like water.

Automation in handling this product had never been done.

Selecting a Solution Provider
Research Products president, Monte White, had to find a company that would be able to help in making decisions quickly. After reviewing many companies, including vertical specialists, Monte selected KSolutions, a company that works in a variety of industries and with a number of processes.

“We were used to doing all of our own design and build. KSolutions helped us move beyond our initial expectation to a future vision,” said Monte White.

“They asked us questions no one ever asked before. And, looked at our business as if they were the owner making sensible business decisions.”

KSolutions took the customer through a discovery process, wrote a scope of work, and managed the installation of the new manufacturing process.  The new process is fully automated and geared toward the future. 

Quadrupling Production
“We quadrupled our single shift production, but the system is capable of much more with multiple shifts, and we designed it for expansion,” Mr. White explains.

“KSolutions was a one-stop shop.  Design, build, and install. Their project management allowed us to concentrate on our daily business during the construction phase.”

Maintaining a Competitive Edge
Prior to the new process, Research Products offered its customers the choice of receiving 20 or 50 lb. bags of the product.  Customers loved the flexible bag options, and Research Products enjoyed a unique advantage over its competition.  But the 20 lb. bags had always presented a problem because manually filling them was very labor intensive.  And, with the new automated process, manually filling the 20 lb. bags would no longer keep up with the much faster system.  After months of research and work with equipment makers, KSolutions generated a solution —  an automated 20 lb. filling system was developed.  Upon final installation of the equipment, Research Products will maintain their competitive edge and keep their customers happy.

Technical Details
Raw product is introduced into the system in a variety of forms, from sacks, to boxes, to supersack totes.  KSolutions and the end users looked at the raw ingredient availability, usage per product and the company’s history of products sold, to determine the size and type of feeder for each raw ingredient to introduce it into the conveyance system. 

Tracking Raw Products
Raw ingredient tracking was a big part of the project, as product recalls are always a potential in any food industry.  Making sure the batching system was ISA S88.01-1995 or S88 compliant was a must. 

KSolutions chose Rockwell RSBatch as the backbone of the data tracking system.  Each product is produced in a batch format that is tracked through the system from raw ingredients through packaging.  Barcode scanners throughout the system allow for data entry, and barcode printers print the product’s name and lot number on the final package.  

System Integration
Marquees on the wall in the blend room display the equipment status and faults for all the equipment including those from multiple manufacturers. The system is truly integrated from raw ingredients through packaging.  Reports from the system can be tied directly into the end user's business software.

Finding the Right Equipment
Due to the difficulty of handling of the product, nearly every piece of equipment purchased had to be tested by running actual product through it.  Product was sent to several equipment manufacturers where tests were monitored by KSolutions and the Research Products Company to verify the equipment could handle the difficult product. 

Some of the equipment suppliers could not handle the product and gave up. Others worked with KSolutions’ engineers to develop new equipment that could handle the difficult product. The result was a solution that was a win/win for both Research Products and the equipment supplier.

Conclusion
Bringing in a set of eyes with experience in a variety of industries asking “Why?” and “Why not?” resulted in achieving the end result – a modern, more efficient manufacturing plant with an increase in production and more capabilities.

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