Client: VISY
The problem showed up in the product, not the drawings. Aluminium was sneaking through the plastics stream, and every mis-sort meant rework, lost time, and more waste to landfill. Shutting the plant wasn’t an option. The brief was clear: lift metal recovery without stopping production.
We started on the floor with the operators—measuring clearances, watching how material actually moved, and mapping what could change inside short windows. From there, Baillie Industries designed, tested, and installed the conveyors that would make an Eddy Current (ECS) upgrade deliver real results. Our drafting team 3D-modelled the chutes so flow would stay smooth, spillage would drop, and maintenance access wouldn’t disappear in the process.
The line had to be re-threaded, piece by piece. The Upstream Transfer Conveyor was removed, turned to reverse its direction, and refitted to re-establish the correct flow. The ECS Infeed Conveyor was extended to sit neatly under the Eddy Current infeed, with new parts fabricated and installed to suit the geometry. The Intermediate Takeaway Conveyor was removed and shortened so it could sit cleanly between the upstream transfer and the ECS infeed without choking drop heights. Around it all, we designed and fabricated a structural stand to carry the ECS, custom chutes to join the new path, and a forklift bin sized to the revised discharge height.
Everything happened in a live area, under permits and SWMS, with lifts and access planned so production kept moving. Panel build, field wiring and PLC/VFD integration were sequenced with short change windows; FAT was done off the line, SAT on site. The best part came last—tuning the throw and splitter settings shoulder-to-shoulder with the operators, running test batches until the separation was crisp and repeatable.
By handover, the change felt almost invisible—which is exactly the point. The line now separates aluminium from plastic reliably, throughput is up, spillage is down, and there’s less waste to landfill. We left a clean trail—red-line drawings, FAT/SAT records, O&M notes—and a system the team trusts.
It’s not just an ECS control upgrade on paper; it’s a reconfigured materials path that works in the real world, because it was built around the way the plant actually runs.
