The Evolution of a Sanitary Slide Gate

1. What was the initial challenge that your customer was looking to solve, improve or upgrade with Triple S's help? A customer reported downtime every time they needed to clean a gate – too much downtime. Tools had to be brought in, maintenance guys. This customer challenged T/SD to design a slide gate that reduced downtime by making it tool-less and easy to assemble and disassemble. 2. Was this specifically for a new product or were they simply looking for a more sanitary approach to an already existing product? This was a retrofit design for existing equipment. 3. What particular special requirements were needed to meet their needs? Quicker changeout, completely remove the entire gate assembly for COP and no tools required. 4. How did the designs develop? T/SD provided conceptual design drawings for customer review and used customer input to finalized design. Two designs came two different departments – one by field service and one by engineering. Both gates are tool-less, easy to remove and clean and very lightweight as the gate plate itself is UHMW. 5. What are the differences between the two designs? The Easy-Clean gate drops down from the bottom of the conveyor. This gate is tool-less and takes just a second to unclamp and lower. If you have a stack up of conveyors (one conveyor over another, the Eco-slide gate pulls out from the side of the conveyor. Again, this gate is tool-less and takes less than one minute to completely remove and reassemble. 6. From beginning to end how long did the entire process, from thinking about a new solution, through investigation and finally installation take? About 4 to 6 weeks for the design and prototype process and another 3 to 4 weeks to fabricate and ship the new gate parts. 7. Will this solution be something that Triple S can offer other customers in this age of increased food safety concerns? Yes, we have added both these tool-less gates as options to our horizontal motion line of conveyors. Many of our customers have purchased one of these new gates, installed it. Let their line operators use it for awhile then bought the multiples to replace every existing old style slide gate. Both gates can be retrofitted into existing conveyors. Learn more at http://www.sssdynamics.com.