Free-Standing Monorail Installation — Food Processing Facility, Ontario

The Challenge

A food processing facility was operating with an aging material handling setup for moving product — in this case, potatoes — through the production process. The existing system was creating safety concerns for employees due to both the age of the equipment and the method being used for transportation. Workers were being exposed to unnecessary ergonomic and injury risk during material movement, and the facility needed a solution that could move product efficiently without putting staff at risk during daily operations.

The solution needed to integrate into the existing facility layout without requiring significant structural modification, and it had to be operable by production staff without specialized training or technical complexity.

The Solution

Wilcox Door Service designed and installed a free-standing monorail system for the facility — a self-supporting track and trolley configuration that allows product to be moved along a defined path through the production area without requiring overhead building structure attachment or floor-level transport equipment. The free-standing design meant the system could be positioned precisely where the workflow required it, without the structural assessment and potential building modification that a ceiling-mounted system would have required.

The monorail was engineered to the facility’s load requirements and production flow, with the track layout optimized for the movement path between processing stations. Safety was a primary design consideration throughout — the system keeps product movement controlled, predictable, and away from the manual handling scenarios that had been creating injury risk.

Outcomes

The free-standing monorail system resolved the safety concerns associated with the previous material handling method. Product movement through the processing area is now controlled and consistent, with workers no longer exposed to the manual handling risks of the previous system. The facility’s management noted the improvement in both safety conditions and operational efficiency — material moves faster and more predictably through the production process with the monorail in place.