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Maybury
Helps to Make Work Safer and Easier for Westvaco Employees
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| A
custom Anver Vacuum VT tube lifting system
was designed by Maybury to supplement Westvaco
Envelope Division's existing Bishamon EZ-Loaders. |
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Westvaco
Envelope Division is one of the largest producers
of envelopes in the world. This company takes great
pride in providing excellent products and services
to meet the needs of its customers and is also dedicated
to providing facilities that meet the safety needs
of its employees. Westvaco
Envelope Division has 8 locations across the country,
including one in Enfield, Connecticut. At the Enfield
location, time has been spent analyzing and upgrading
machinery in an attempt to make the machines safe
for employees to operate. As a result, Westvaco has
reduced machine-related injuries, decreasing the occurance
of both pinch points and lacerations. Westvaco has
also educated its employees on specific ergonomic
procedures for functions such as lifting and bending.
Based on the recommendations of its ergonomics committee,
Westvaco decided to make additional improvements to
its facility in order to better protect its employees.
Westvaco
had already installed Bishamon EZ-Loader Pallet Positioners,
which are designed to automatically raise and lower
pallets during loading or unloading. The Bishamon
EZ-Loaders have the benefit of moving up and down
so that the operator does not have to bend down to
put the boxes on a ground pallet. These units adjust
the weight on the pallet so that the drop point is
always waist-high. They also allow for easy rotation,
which keeps the operator from having to strain and
reach. Westvaco needed to supplement its Bishamon
EZ-Loaders with an ergonomic box-handling system that
would help lift and transport large envelope boxes
onto the shipping pallets. Westvaco contacted Maybury
Material Handling to help them with a solution.
Maybury
decided that an Anver Vacuum VT tube lifting system
would be the best choice for Westvaco. This system
uses suction to grab and support the load that is
being lifted and moved. Yet, before Maybury could
begin to design Westvaco's system, they had to make
sure that it would not interfere with the daily operations
occurring throughout the facility — especially
the changing envelope lines and fork trucks traveling
back and forth as they unload the conveyor lines.
One
dilemma was how to support the system. It could not
be supported from the floor because the lift trucks
would not have enough room to operate between columns
in the facility, and there was the potential for damage
to the supports. Furthermore, the system could not
be hung from the ceiling because of the building's
roof load design.
Maybury's
Engineering Department accordingly designed a custom
jib crane/vacuum lifting system. The complete system
provides the ability to hang a total of twelve jib
cranes from a truss box beam, with each crane equipped
with an Anver Vacuum Lifter. The jib crane system
is an integration of a Gorbel system and floor-supported
gantry cranes. Each 10-foot crane is zoned for a specific
work area and has a lifting capacity of 100 pounds.
The cranes are attached to a custom-fabricated truss
box beam that was designed by Jay Mercadante, Maybury's
Fabrication and Engineering Manager.
The
truss box beam is 240 feet long and is broken down
into six sections. Each of these sections spans 40
feet and is welded between the existing building columns.
Each 40-foot section is zoned to support two jib boom
cranes. The truss box beam is constructed of wide
flange I-Beams with a C-Channel welded to the sides
to help minimize sway. Additional bracing from the
top of the I-Beams to the building is provided to
help counteract the rotation on the truss box beam.
The jib cranes are perpendicular to the truss box
beam and travel left to right, allowing access to
two side-by-side work areas. Each jib crane has a
clearance height of 10 feet, which gives the operator
enough room to move the unit from side to side. Each
of the jib cranes is equipped with an Anver VT Vacuum
Lifter that elevates and supports boxes ranging in
size from 18" x 18" x 15" up to 24"
x 36" x 5" and weighing a maximum of 50
pounds. The Anver system was connected to the Gorbel
crane system with great ease, due to Gorbel's universal
trolley/hook design.
The
Anver VT Vacuum Lift provides ergonomic box handling,
avoiding the need for the operator to bend over and
lift the boxes, which could cause physical injuries.
The unit lifts the box with the vacuum, while all
the operator has to do is use a single hand control
to position the box on the shipping pallet.
Al
Eisold, Superintendent at Westvaco, says, "We
are very pleased with the custom work that Maybury
did for us. They did an excellent job of installing
our new system, which functions just as we requested.
We continue to be a satisfied Maybury customer."
At
Maybury, we are ready to prove our custom design and
installation capabilities to you. Please call us to
discuss your requirements.
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