Ansell: Automated Healthcare Glove Packing Solution

Client

Ansell

Product

Automated layered glove packing

Awards

Winner 1996 Institution of Engineers Australia, Engineering Excellence Award.

Our challenge was to find a way to automatically singulate and package a bulk product with no structural stiffness.

In addition, our client required a result which:

• Improved packing density
• automatically packed gloves so that they could be removed from tissue style cartons
• improved the integrity of contents count and reducing "give away"
  

Our Ingenuity

The unique nature of the product combined with the exacting needs of the outcome required a program of process innovation to resolve a large number of issues.

Our team managed the entire process from concept development through in principle trials and prototyping to final design, manufacture and commission

Key features incorporated in the development included:

• The ability to select and pack 300 gloves per minute
• 20 individual packing heads providing flexibility for volume and maintenance access
• the ability to automatically singulate, count, orient, layer, and pack gloves into tissue style cartons
• readily available components for ease of maintenance

Our challenges included:

• Manipulating the gloves to enable the automated singulation and orientation from bulk
• loading cartons with oversized, compressible product
• no off-the-shelf solutions available

Your Advantage

Ansell obtained a unique product differentiation and subsequent market advantage.

• Each machine installation reduced the labor requirement by 19
• 19 machines supplied across Asia and the USA
• An improvement in packing density of 30%, results in improved transport efficiencies
• Total labour savings in excess of 300 operators