WONDERFUL CITRUS. Case Study

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Miles Robbins
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1 WONDERFUL CITRUS Honeywell Intelligrated s End-of-line Solution Combines the Speed of Automation With the Flexibility to Accommodate Multiple Packaging Types for Wonderful Citrus Case Study

Honeywell Intelligrated s End-of-line Solution Combines the Speed of Automation With the Flexibility to Accommodate Multiple Packaging Types for Wonderful Citrus When Projected Growth Surpassed

2 Honeywell Intelligrated s End-of-line Solution Combines the Speed of Automation With the Flexibility to Accommodate Multiple Packaging Types for Wonderful Citrus When Projected Growth Surpassed Manual Palletizing Capabilities, Wonderful Citrus Turned to Honeywell Intelligrated for a Solution That Combined the Speed of Automation With the Flexibility to Accommodate Multiple Packaging Types Please note: Honeywell Intelligrated within this case study refers to Intelligrated, which Honeywell acquired in Please note: Wonderful Citrus in this case study refers to Paramount Citrus, which was renamed in 2015 along with its parent company, The Wonderful Co. Wonderful Citrus is part of the The Wonderful Co. family of companies. The Wonderful Co. is a $3 billion international company focused on healthy brands for healthy lifestyles. Its products include fresh fruit and tree nuts; floral delivery; and premium beverages such as artesian water, California wines and pure pomegranate juices and teas. Over the last decade, the company has transformed the healthy pomegranate and POM Wonderful into a worldwide phenomenon, FIJI Water into the country s No. 1 imported bottled water, and Wonderful Pistachios into one of America s top-selling snack nuts. Its diverse holdings make it the world s largest grower of tree crops, America s largest citrus grower, and the world s largest flower delivery service. Wonderful Citrus is America s largest integrated grower, packer and shipper of fresh citrus mandarins, navel oranges, Valencia oranges, lemons, limes, Texas red grapefruit and other citrus varieties. More than 26 million fresh cartons of citrus are processed at its facilities in California s San Joaquin Valley, Texas s Rio Grande Valley and Mexico and then shipped around the world. The company is best known for its sweet, Wonderful Citrus opened its new 640,000-squarefoot plant in PAGE 2

3 Alvey 910 palletizers stack nest cases according to packaging type. seedless, easy-peel California mandarins marketed under the Wonderful Halos brand. Wonderful Citrus is the country s largest grower of mandarins, which are processed in the world s largest citrus packinghouse at its company s headquarters in Delano, Calif. With a well-established market on the west coast, Wonderful Citrus launched its mandarins nationwide in To support the eastern expansion, Wonderful Citrus planted an additional 6,500 acres of mandarins, bringing its total acreage up to 14,000. A majority of these orchards are currently being harvested, and its acres in development are expected to be mature and ready to pick by In order to process the volume of fruit coming in the facility at our target throughput rate, we needed a fully automated process throughout the facility, which meant an automated end-of-line palletizing system was a major requirement, said Jason Blake, vice president, California packing operations, Wonderful Citrus. Handling Challenges Drive Automated Solution With the additional acreage, the groves yield up to 15 million pounds of fruit per week during citrus season, creating a logistics challenge for the legacy manual processing facility. The material handling answer for Wonderful Citrus was to design and build a new solution adjacent to the groves and its existing facility in Delano. Wonderful Citrus designed the facility from the ground up by evaluating best practices in manual and automated processes against productivity goals. Vendor Selection Wonderful Citrus required a system that could deliver the speed of automation with the flexibility to handle multiple packaging types originally designed for manual palletizing. Wonderful Citrus needed a vendor with the product offering, engineering knowledge and experience to offer a complete end-of-line palletizing solution. After a lengthy PAGE 3

bidding process that included more than a year of design and planning, Wonderful Citrus chose Honeywell Intelligrated as its preferred supplier and integration partner.

4 bidding process that included more than a year of design and planning, Wonderful Citrus chose Honeywell Intelligrated as its preferred supplier and integration partner. We looked at the overall design of the equipment, speed, efficiency, productivity, safety and reliability, said Pete McKenzie, director of design and startup for the Wonderful Citrus Halos facility. Honeywell Intelligrated s Alvey 910 system scored the highest on all of those, and that s what drove them to the top of our list. Precise Layer Control: Customized clamps to precisely position pallet loads to accept each successive layer Special hoist technology to minimize drop distance for each new pallet layer Bi-parting apron to reduce amount of inconsistent pressure and case positioning during layer deposit cycle and nesting process Design Collaboration: Flexible Handling, Efficiency and Speed Wonderful Citrus presented a unique set of design challenges for its end-of-line operation. The equipment needed to gently and securely handle multiple packaging types, and the overall system had to handle cases per minute. It was also necessary for the solution to be scalable to accommodate increases in production. The legacy process of column stack nesting corrugate tabbed cases was designed for manual palletizing, but needed to be adapted for automation. Through design collaboration with third-party corrugate suppliers and Wonderful Citrus purchasing and engineering teams, Honeywell Intelligrated custom engineered the Alvey 910 palletizers with packagehandling modifications to ensure the cases could be positioned and securely nested at speeds that met target throughput rates. Implementation and Testing: System Performance Exceeds Expectations Honeywell Intelligrated completed the end-of-line installation ahead of schedule and was ready for acceptance testing. Wonderful Citrus required Honeywell Intelligrated to complete 30 days of testing to evaluate throughput rate, reliability, uptime, quality of pallet formation and safety. The customized Alvey 910 lines met or exceeded all performance benchmarks and testing requirements for all five units. We did 30 days of testing on the first three palletizing lines, but by the time we got to the fourth and fifth, Honeywell Intelligrated was doing such a good job that we felt confident that all lines would deliver without going through acceptance testing, said McKenzie. PAGE 4

5 Accuglide accumulation conveyors route cases to Alvey 910 palletizing stations. Training Employees to Handle the Harvest Honeywell Intelligrated instituted a thorough training program to ensure Wonderful Citrus employees would be ready to handle the influx of fruit once the mandarin season began. Senior technicians were dispatched to educate employees through classroom and hands-on training on equipment operation, safety, troubleshooting and maintenance, and provided specialized training manuals to supplement face-to-face instruction. To conclude their training, employees were required to pass written and performance examinations to become certified equipment operators. Honeywell Intelligrated exceeded our training expectations, said Gaby Beasley, production manager, Wonderful Citrus. The training and materials provided became the benchmark of what we expected from other vendors. The Wonderful Citrus System at a Glance Following harvest, the mandarins are washed, sorted and put into cold storage. Once an order is received, mandarins are assigned to one of five fully equipped production lines where they are inspected for imperfections. The fruit then goes through a second wash to ensure only the highest-quality produce is packed, while lower-grade and nonstandard product is diverted to juicing. Workers then place the preferred bagged fruit into a variety of cartons. From here, Honeywell Intelligrated s end-of-line solution takes over. Cartons are loaded on to a Honeywell Intelligrated Accuglide accumulation conveyor leading to a dedicated Alvey 910 palletizing station. PAGE 5

6 Multi-strand chain conveyor and motor-operated turntables guide pallet loads to dedicated stretch wrappers. The palletizer orients the cases into patterns that will properly nest according to packaging type. Once the cases are in position, bi-parting apron clamps open and drop the finished layer onto the pallet. After a pallet is fully loaded and discharged from the palletizer, corner boards and zip ties are applied to ensure pallet load structure. Pallets travel on a Honeywell Intelligrated multi-strand chain conveyor and through motor-operated turntables to an automatic stretch wrapper. Wrapped loads travel over pallet conveyor to a chain-driven live roller pickup station. Forklifts are used to retrieve loads and deposit them in a refrigerated staging area, ready for distribution. Results Create Model for Future Implementation Honeywell Intelligrated provided a comprehensive end-of-line solution that met or exceeded all business goals and increased line productivity by 15 percent. The installation was completed ahead of schedule, and system operators were trained in time for the first day of the mandarin season. The shift from manual to automated palletizing resulted in the highest degree of secure and stable nesting at the fastest throughput rates the industry has seen. The facility s rate of cases per minute is a level of throughput not possible through manual processes. The automated palletizing process developed for mandarins can be adapted to any fragile fresh fruit packaging operation and breaks the assumption that packaging designed for manual palletizing cannot be handled by automation. PAGE 6

Tim Lasko (Honeywell Intelligrated), alongside Pete McKenzie, Gaby Beasley and Jason Blake (Wonderful Citrus) In anticipation of future growth and expansion, the facility and system design is

7 Tim Lasko (Honeywell Intelligrated), alongside Pete McKenzie, Gaby Beasley and Jason Blake (Wonderful Citrus) In anticipation of future growth and expansion, the facility and system design is scalable to accommodate greater fruit volume. According to Blake, As the rest of our mandarin acreage matures into production, we ll add three more lines of Honeywell Intelligrated palletizers and conveyors. We will also introduce pallet conveyance to our refrigerated staging areas to alleviate excess forklift traffic. Wonderful Citrus End-of-line Equipment Used: Accuglide accumulation case conveyors Alvey 910 conventional palletizers Pallet dispensers Multi-strand chain conveyors Motor-operated turntables Pivoting chain transfers Working With Honeywell Intelligrated Testimonials Honeywell Intelligrated met or exceeded every goal we had for each phase of the project, whether it was design, installation or training, said Blake. We will continue our partnership in the future and highly recommend Honeywell Intelligrated to others as well. We highly recommend Honeywell Intelligrated and its Alvey products to anyone looking for an end-of-line palletizing solution, said McKenzie. Working with Honeywell Intelligrated proved to be a great experience that yielded a productive relationship and produced the business results we needed. Chain-driven live roller conveyors Stretch wrappers from ITW Muller PAGE 7

8 Honeywell Intelligrated WCCS Honeywell International Inc.

BEE SWEET CITRUS Collaboration Results in Automated Palletizing Solution With Flexibility to Accommodate Diverse Product, Packaging Requirements

BEE SWEET CITRUS Collaboration Results in Automated Palletizing Solution With Flexibility to Accommodate Diverse Product, Packaging Requirements Case Study Collaboration Results in Automated Palletizing