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High-Speed Laner

The High Speed Laner from Shuttleworth is designed to divide products from single to multiple lanes, mass fill ovens, freezers, or any other equipment requiring spreading or dividing of products at a high speed. At speeds of up to 700 products per minute for small to medium-sized product, the high speed laner is extremely sanitary, automatic, and flexible for diverse products without mounting any devices above the surface of product flow.

Creating the high-speed laner is just another value-added device that we already did and we've done it several different ways. We pulled all of these systems together and developed one very economical yet very robust system that can do it all.

Shuttleworth has always prided itself on partnering with our customers to solve their most challenging automation needs. In evaluation of existing and new production lines with our customers in the food industry specifically, there was a big need for a high-speed clean lane dividing solution. Other laners we've designed in the past have all the mechanisms above the conveyor and over the products. So we decided to go back to the drawing board and come up with a design to fit that market better.

We moved all the diverting and driving mechanisms underneath the conveyor surface to minimize the chance of contamination from overhead devices. There are no sensors overhead; all you have are your guides and your conveyor surface. All of the servo technology resides underneath yet in a very wash-down environment that is very easy to access and maintain.

The lane divider is primarily suited for heavy washdown sanitary environments. It can handle up to 700 products per minute. It is a sanitary design and meets our Easy Clean standards with all stainless steel construction for the framework. The bearings are all stainless and sealed, and any lubrication needed on the system is automatic. However, it could be adapted to fit any application that requires high-speed lane diverting.

The laner contributes to general handling because it is a completely dynamic motion product. It never stops or drastically changes speed; it’s all fluid motion. We use the guides on the lane divider to actually extend along with the product, matching its rate of speed and then dividing into slug lengths. That is one of the key things that allows us to achieve higher speeds without having to break product. The product is able to convey through seamlessly. The tunnels extend out at the same rate the product is conveying through and shift to the side at the same time, allowing us to have increased rates and higher throughputs.

Throughput in a production environment is really critical. Customers usually want really fast changeovers, which is often where downtime occurs, either during a changeover or due to something breaking. In the changeover of a typical production line, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours depending on the product. When you compound those times for multiple changeovers over a week, month, or year, it can add up to significant loss of production for our customers.

With this device, we can perform changeovers with the push of a button. You can adjust the lane width and run a 3-inch product or a 6-inch product. In addition to that, you can change your product count. Everything is HMI-driven and has a very intuitive interface, allowing you to set up a new product within minutes. You can change everything with a simple recall of a push button, and you're up and running. This allows our customers to capture that changeover time back, which goes straight to their bottom line.

The high-speed lane divider can have two width adjustment capabilities: one is complete servo adjustment via an HMI setup screen, and the other is a lower-cost solution with manual adjustability.

My favorite thing about the laner is its versatility to run so many different products of varying sizes and speeds. When you have slower production rates, it can handle those, and when you require higher production rates, there’s no extra equipment to purchase or adjust. You just pull up the recipe and again run the system all with the same device. It’s a great tool for quick changeovers and setting up a production line quickly.

My favorite aspect of the high-speed laner is the integrated motion between four servos at one time. It’s seamless in operation and appears as though the laner was made for that very one specific product. But when you change the product, it adjusts right along with it. There's nothing there to see; it looks so simple yet is very dynamic.

If it's important to our customers, it's important to us. Whether it's a complex production line or a simple piece of conveyor, we at Shuttleworth always want to continue to be at the forefront of the market and be hyper-responsive to our customers' needs.