Flexco keeps belts and businesses moving

Flexing its muscles in the Australian recycling industry for the past 30 years, conveyor belt solutions specialist Flexco is familiar with the challenges waste operations face.

With 116 years’ experience under its belt, the company has been doing some heavy lifting to ensure waste operators and recyclers stay one move ahead.

Sebastian Olguin, Flexco Heavy-Duty Specialist, says the company has focused on creating solutions that meet the sector's ever-changing needs.

"Recycling definitely has its challenges," he says. "The waste itself can vary from household rubbish to construction waste.

"We’ve collaborated with key players and have a level of industry knowledge where we can now help customers keep conveyor lines running for longer, reducing carry-back, mistracking, belt slip, spillage, and unforeseen downtime."

While conveyor belts in recycling facilities enable loads of waste to be transported and separated, Flexco equipment is custom engineered to ensure the belt keeps moving. It has a variety of belt cleaners, belt clamps, lifters and cutters for belt maintenance, and mechanical fasteners for long-performing splices.

Sebastian says carryback is a leading issue for waste operations, requiring frequent clean-up. It can wear conveyor components prematurely and cause other conveying problems such as belt mistracking. At every contact point on a conveyor, material can build up and eventually fall onto the floor causing disruptions to the operation.

"It doesn't just happen at one point but will happen along the whole conveyor length," Sebastian says.

"Some of these conveyors can be kilometres long. You will eventually have carryback material that someone must shovel up and remove.

"Belt cleaners are an integral part of a belt conveyor system because of their ability to remove carryback which improves worker safety, increases operating efficiency and enhances productivity."

Flexco cleaners are fitted in pairs – a primary cleaner is positioned on the head pulley to capture the bulk of the material, while a secondary cleaner goes underneath the belt to pick up the remainder.

The most common type of primary cleaners used at waste facilities are those designed with a solid one-piece polyurethane blade.

Sebastian says this style prevents large conveyed materials, such as rags, from getting caught in the belt rollers and adhering to the belt.

He says Flexco's Y-Type Secondary cleaner is perfect for the recycling industry. It's a one-piece blade and cushion designed to ensure there is nowhere for material to build up and cause additional issues.

Finding the right cleaner for all the varied materials being conveyed is another issue the industry faces.

"In the recycling world the material being processed is so diverse," Sebastian says. "In most recycling facilities the material starts off bigger and becomes finer as it is broken down. It's critical to adapt the type of cleaner accordingly.

"Our cleaners can be custom designed by our in-house engineering team to suit the requirement of specific applications. We want to make sure that our products are working to their optimum for each customer and are the best product for the job."

Sebastian cites a recent obstacle at a recycling facility in New South Wales where belt cleaners were wearing down too quickly.

He says Flexco did some testing and found the residue from the waste being processed was corrosive and breaking down the blade compound and being absorbed into the rubber belt.

"To combat this, we replaced the standard polyurethane blade with our food-grade polyurethane blade that is chemical resistant," Sebastian says.

"The blade has been designed with chemical-resistant materials and stainless-steel components that protect against corrosive environments."

Flexco's polyurethane blades are produced at its headquarters in a newly expanded manufacturing facility in West Michigan. The polyurethanes were developed following testing on more than 100 various formulas to identify the best solutions for the widest range of applications.

"After changing the blade, the New South Wales facility has seen enormous improvements in blade life and cleaning efficiency," Sebastian says.

In another example, the homemade brush cleaners on a recycling belt at a facility that captures broken glass to make new products were not doing the job, resulting in wasted product as well as extra maintenance time needed to clean up the dangerous mess.

Once a month cleaner brush changes and housekeeping took two to four hours at a time and product loss tallied in the thousands.

A Flexco local distributor suggested that a U-Type secondary cleaner be mounted inside the chute, close to the head pulley. The product not only reduced material waste, but clean-up and maintenance costs.

Product loss was reduced, saving the company thousands of dollars, and maintenance time and manpower were cut. By all accounts, the cleaner paid for itself in less than two weeks and the facility operations manager ordered additional cleaners for other conveyors that are experiencing similar problems.

Sebastian says it's this type of direct support that has helped the company strengthen its reputation.

Flexco Australia has a team of regional managers, engineers, and customer service representatives on-site most days assessing identified conveyor challenges and collaborating with engineers to find solutions.

With 13 locations around the world the company can also tap into a wealth of global knowledge.

"Representation and distributors in more than 150 countries makes it easier to get what customers want, when they need it," Sebastian says.

But he says it's no good having the right equipment if you don't know how to use it.

Taking service to a new level, Flexco offers several training and education options for its products. Field specialists can visit sites to conduct hands-on practical training right on the conveyor, Flexco University is an online learning tool for participants to use at their own pace, or offices in Sydney and Western Australia both have fully-equipped training facilities.

For more information, visit: www.flexco.com.au

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