Suppliers are increasing the intelligence of cartoning systems to better handle lighter weight or recycled-content cartons while also easing rapid changeover.
The future is flexibility
Food
and beverage companies are expanding their sales volume by introducing new
products with shorter runs, meaning that more and more items and sizes must run
on the same machine. This requires more flexibility and easier, quicker
changeover capability.
“Our customers rarely purchase a
cartoner for a single size product pack pattern or case size, so changeover is
critical,” says Kim Mulholland, vice president of sales and marketing at Aagard
Group.
Bringing a high degree of flexibility to the table,
Delkor’s Trayfecta series of tray and carton forming systems can accommodate
different types of packaging materials and also perform locking and gluing.
They also accommodate different sizes and throughput requirements with 15 model
configurations.
Offering quicker changeover capability is
only helpful if the operator is skilled enough. This requires size changeover
that can be accomplished by people with modest educations and skill levels.
“We’ve
got to address this requirement of making size changeovers not only quick, but
also easy to accomplish with reasonably skilled people,” says Nick Bishop, vice
president of sales and marketing at Bradman Lake.
For
companies such as Bradman Lake, this requires equipment that uses more software
with easily accessible changeover menus that give step-by-step prompts to
ensure that the operator interface or the product logic controllers do almost
all guidance work.
“The secret is to use the technology that
is available, but present it in such a way that it can be followed by the
average operator and the average engineer,” says Bishop.
If
changeovers are preprogrammed, then the operator can simply follow prompts and
instructions instead of interpreting and making complex decisions. Servos and
variable frequency drives do the rest.
“As a result, quick,
repeatable adjustments are possible, and sub-assemblies can be designed as
modular units which can be added or removed as production requirements change,”
says Tom Brooker, cartoning product manager at KHS.
Z
Automation, for example, offers a completely servo-driven system in its CH7.5
200C continuous-motion horizontal cartoning system with tool-less changeover in
10 minutes or less with minimal tweaking and maintenance.
Less materials, less hassle
But
efficiency doesn’t all come down to changes in machinery. This day in age,
supermarkets have tremendous pricing power, and food and beverage companies
have to either lower or at least not raise prices, which, coupled with rising
commodities prices, demands cost cuts in the packaging department. Food and
beverage companies are changing packaging by reducing the amount of material
and increasing recycled content in packaging, saving costs and increasing profit
margins.
“There are significant savings in moving from a
32-point thickness in a carton to 24 or 22 points,” says Bishop. “Most of the
cost of a carton is in the board, so the less that you use, the less the carton
costs. This yields savings that go straight back to the customer and, maybe
ultimately, the consumers themselves.”
Mulholland agrees
that there are potential material savings by going to either a lighter weight
or recycled carton. She states that many of Aagard’s customers are going in
with their return on investments based on a flat blank versus a preglued blank,
which leads to the option to switch to a lighter weight or recycled board,
saving the customer even more money.
However, recycled
chipboard tends to be softer due to longer paper fibers. Thus, both thinner
board and board made from recycled content can run differently on a machine.
While the material changes can save money, it can lead to increased stoppages
and downtime, as well as more waste, which can lead to significant loss of efficiencies
and scrap.
Aagard offers a wraparound cartoner that can run
that board at speeds up to 210 cartons per minute since it handles carton
blanks flat, not preglued.
Other companies have also
responded.
“We’ve got to bring improved handling to the
carton in the way that it’s pulled from the hopper and the way it’s
controlled,” says Bishop. “So that might mean we’ve got to use improved methods
of creating vacuum suction that are more consistent, which might mean that
we’ve got to use different vacuum creation techniques than we may have done in
the past.”
KHS seeks to eliminate the need for packaging on
the secondary side altogether.
“Our equipment is designed to
run chipboard or corrugate material up to B-flute,” says Brooker. “This allows
the company to provide high-speed packaging solutions that do not require an
additional outer case for protection.”
But be it a thinner
board or a smarter machine, there is no sole responsible party in whatever is
being done to improve carton characteristics or machinery; machine and carton
manufacturers have to team up to come up with a solution.
F&BP
