JBT’s Unifiller offers food processors the best quality and precision in filling, providing fast and efficient product change-over and a speedy, automated Clean-In-Place procedure. However, like any other piece of equipment that sees continuous use over a number of years, a Unifiller can experience natural wear and tear. Untreated, this can lead to needless giveaway and product leakages.
JBT’s new Unifiller valve upgrade will recondition the performance of your machine, maximizing yield and throughput in the process. The upgrade also helps enhance machine longevity by ensuring smooth operation and limiting wear on vital components, such as the volume cam, piston guiding rolls and valve shafts.
“Valves that have been used for many years are typically not as tight-fitting as newer ones,” explains JBT Customer Care Sales Manager, Rex Pattyn. “If a customer fills a can or a bottle, they want to be able to guarantee a minimum volume, but due to leakage older valves will cause the giveaway of a lot of product.”
Clear benefits
According to Pattyn, the Return on Investment offered by the Unifiller upgrade is clear: reduced giveaways, the elimination of leakage, and the minimization of product losses. “This upgrade can be extremely beneficial for customers,” he says. “Much less giveaway translates directly into euros or dollars, while product leakages cannot be recovered.”
Seen in practice, the Unifiller Upgrade is quick to demonstrate its worth. “If you have a new valve, that translates into less impurities,” Pattyn continues. “Sweet Condensed Milk can crystallize and clog up pistons or components. Likewise, seeds in jams, jellies and preserves can block filling processes. This can damage cylinders and lead to system jams or even stopping production which is even more expensive.”
The Unifiller Upgrade helps customers avoid such risks thanks to electrolytic polishing of the valves, which both improves cleanability and increases valve lifetime in there form of enhanced corrosion resistance and machine hygiene. “By improving overall machine hygiene, we can eliminate micro-organisms,” adds Pattyn.
Savings in numbers
A further benefit is the new Steam Wetting System (SWS), a feature of the upgrade which helps customers removes build-ups of crystalized sugar. “Sweetened Condensed Milk contains a lot of sugar which crystalizes and can cause friction between the piston and the cylinder,” says Pattyn. “The SWS circulates hot steam through the vulnerable areas, preventing the sugar in the milk from crystalizing as a result.”
The result? For older machines (+10 years), filling accuracy is likely to be doubled. The upgrade’s effectiveness can also be demonstrated in numbers. Taking the example of a customer producing 400 cans of Sweetened Condensed Milk per minute over a 16-hour production cycle on older machines, Pattyn estimates close to €450 in giveaway can be saved every day by installing the Unifiller upgrade.