Electrolux is the world’s leading manufacturer of vacuum cleaners. The Swedish factory is one of the world’s most advanced of its kind, producing 5000–6000 vacuum cleaners each day. For more than 10 years, FlexLink installations have been running everywhere in the plant with a total conveyor length of more than 10 000 metres. Moreover, Electrolux always re-use components when making production changes.

Since the end of 1996, a complete assembly line takes care of the fan house and the motor and fan sub-assemblies, together with final assembly of the two existing variants of vacuum cleaner VM-1. The pallet assembly line consists of a FlexLink twin track pallet system and has 24 different assembly stations, of which 18 consist of FlexLink’s pick & place units with a cycle time of approximately twelve seconds. Buffering lines are running up under the ceiling and are built of FlexLink size XM.

Reuse of FlexLink components at every line
“We are rebuilding and changing the flow of the line”, says Hans-Peter Hafström, Electrolux responsible for the line. “It provides a new concept allowing us to reduce the number of operators from three to two. When rebuilding we always use of the existing FlexLink components. “I think we must be one of the biggest plants in the world reusing FlexLink material.” Ten years ago about 10 000 metres of FlexLink chain and components were used in the Västervik plant. “I believe it is much more today”, says Hans-Peter Hafström. Even if we reuse the components as much as possible, there are always new applications emerging on the different lines.”

Electrolux’s engineers built it all themselves
The latest FlexLink installation in Västervik was made in the beginning of this year for a new assembly line for the Oxygen vacuum cleaner. Electrolux’s engineers built it all themselves using the FlexLink pallet conveyor size XM as the foundation. “It consists of two reversed lines serviced by one robot placing the inner parts into the shell”, says Åke Holm, responsible for the line. “We have made a special solution modifying the FlexLink XM pallet. The lines are run in two shifts and the daily production lies around 1400.”