Mulch Manufacturing: Automation Upgrade

Mulch Manufacturing of Callahan, Florida, invested early in bagging automation.

Their first generation of Form, Fill & Seal machines from nVenia’s HAMER Brand worked well for over 8 years, but early in 2010 they felt it was time for an upgrade.

After reviewing competing equipment, their management team flew to a new Hamer 2090/300VF installation to see them in operation. Seeing these machines run illustrated the vast differences between both other manufacturers and older HAMER equipment. In the fall of 2010, they purchased three Model 300VF volumetric fillers to upgrade their existing lines.

After running these lines for the past two seasons, they’ve seen a significant impact on their business due to reduced wear and maintenance and improved uptime performance for all three lines.

“It used to be every season we had to tear apart the Volumetric Filler and replace sprockets, the leveling chain and often a clutch brake. We have not replaced a part on the fillers in two seasons,” said Tim Burns, Mulch Manufacturing’s Plant Manager.

Overall, every part of these machines shows design improvement.

“Our guys find them easier to run and keep running. In our plant we run hard – almost twice a standard line’s annual production. We’ve gained about 25% in bag rate productivity with these new lines!” said Burns.

The Mulch Manufacturing team was so impressed with the three Model 300VF that they bought a fourth line a year later!