Are you fired up? Ready for a day where the heat is on? This is the life on the ovens at Coerco, the pace is fast. Why? Because it takes a lot to produce an average of over 430 oven shots a week which is enough poly tanks and products to fill nearly 30 truckloads every week!
From the hands of the production scheduling and logistics scheduling team, it comes to the awesome team on the 10 ovens we have at Coerco. Every day is carefully planned for the most efficient way to get the huge number of products from powder form to a product ready to go on one of our delivery trucks. Watch the video and read on to see some of the activities that happen every day to produce the best poly tank.
It Starts as Powder
Every poly product produced at Coerco starts out in powder form. This powder is processed in house to give Coerco complete control over the entire process from the raw polymer beads being received at our compounding plant through to the delivery of your tank. This powder is then weighed out on large scales in large hoppers. These hoppers then transfer the powder into the metal moulds. Each tank produced has its own unique serial number applied so that we can trace every tank and its journey through our factory and beyond.
Get it into the Oven
The moulds then have their lids clamped back on ready to be put into the oven. The cook times for each tank vary depending on tank size, oven type, size and even the weather. Cook times can range from 20 minutes to 1 hour. Once the cooking cycle is complete the mould comes out to cool. This is when the molten polymer sets to the shape of the mould and solidifies to the product you would receive.
A Tank is Born
During the cooling process the poly product shrinks and pulls away from the interior surface of the mould. This then allows us to slide tanks and other vessels out of the moulds as one-piece products with no seams to create cracking issues. The mould lids are removed and tanks are pulled or slid out and then placed in trimming and assembly areas for finishing off.
Getting the Tanks Together
The final part of the tanks journey is where the tanks are cleaned and have their inlets, outlets and overflows fitted. Small standard tanks are finished when standing upright while large standard tanks are finished off on large rollers which spin the tanks allowing easy manoeuvring to fit overflows, fittings and lids. Tanks that require custom fabrication and other fittings are taken to our plastic fabrication factory which is another whole story... (watch out for this one!). Tanks are labelled and all their details are recorded in our database, then they are placed into the stock holding bays and then the load bays ready for loading onto our trucks. Loading of our trucks start at 5 am every work day, emptying the load bays, starting the process again.
Stay with us on this Journey of a Day in the life of Coerco. Next we visit the assembly factory where tanks are customised and the more detailed products are assembled. If you missed the last episode of a Day in the Office you can view it here. Stay tuned folks!