Investment totalling £200,000 has increased the flexibility, control and speed of a bulk filling line at one of the UK’s leading independent lubricants company.

Morris Lubricants, celebrated its 150th birthday in December, began installing the new, digitally controlled line on November 1 and it was fully operational 17 days later.

The installation, which also includes a pallet wrapping machine, was so smooth that the company fulfilled all orders throughout the process. Six contractors helped the company’s maintenance team on the project, which was designed and managed by Steve Reading, group engineering manager.

“The new, semi-automated system gives us more flexibility in transferring product within our production facility to the filling lines and has increased our bulk filling speeds,” said Mr Reading.

The new system transfers 20,000 litres of oil an hour to the filling line where nine IVCs are filled in an hour compared to four-and-a-half on the previous line. The new line fills barrels from 20 to 205 litres at 1,000 litres every three minutes.

Morris Lubricants’ managing director Chris Slezakowski is delighted with the success of the new filling line and its smooth installation.

“The largest volume of product that we ship is either in tankers, delivery tanks or barrels,” he said. “It accounts for 40 per cent of our volume.

“Our previous bulk filling line had been manually operated for many years, so we invested to introduce a faster, better controlled and lower energy line that is more easily managed.

“We can now control the pumps more accurately and the filling speed of five litres per second is double that of the previous line. We can fill a tanker in about 20 minutes when that used to take us hours.

“We can also measure exactly what has gone into the tanks or barrels with a high degree of accuracy and power consumption has reduced by 50 per cent.

“The installation was well planned and executed, and we have managed to improve a significant part of our production. The new filling line gives us better control, better traceability, better record keeping and faster sample inspection.

“We are able to meet customer demand with speed and increased efficiency, which improves productivity, saves time and gives us an edge over our competitors.”