An upgrade to a de-commissioned cold store for one of Aryzta's UK sites, was required to bring it back on line. The driving force was to bring the storage back in-house as subcontracted cold storage was an ever increasing cost.

Due to the step in building heights between the cold store and ambient area, the system, which was dual lane, each lane 12m long, had to be supported from a steel structure at 1000mm H.

The criteria was to provide a dual lane conveyor solution, that was fully reversible, to store pallets in the cold store and deliver into an ambient lobby area for loading onto refrigerated trailers. The cold store operated at -25 and the lobby area at 8°C. 

As part of the control function and to overcome the issues caused by cold store environments, such as condensation, which interferes with normal photo electric cells (PECS), CSL used their specially designed sensor rollers. These replaced the use of normal PECs for detecting the presence of a pallet and providing a non-contact accumulation conveyor system. As the conveyor was reversible, two sensor rollers were used within each zone.

A main control panel was sited away from the main area, up in the control room, with a remote HMI positioned close to the ambient Lobby area.  A second remote panel was located within the cold store for dual function control.

As part of the process, CSL had to work and integrate with other suppliers to provide a turnkey solution, which included interfacing with an air curtain system and rapid shutter door. These interfaces were critical to ensuring the pallets were discharged in a sequenced and controlled manner, whilst maintaining the cold store temperature.

CSL delivered the project on time and on budget.