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New Hot Melt Applicator Ends Cartoner Downtime

Protein producer and packer replaces its pneumatic glue applicator with an all-electric model that significantly reduces hot-melt glue usage and spare parts, ensures seal quality, and eliminates downtime.

Tesla go adhesive applicator
The tesla go contains no dynamic seals, allowing for a cycle life in excess of 1 billion cycles compared to a pneumatically actuated gun life of 25 to 50 million cycles.

Mountain View Packaging of Boise, Id., packages several size and batter varieties of finger steaks, pork nuggets, and a variety of chicken products for private-label retail sale. When company Maintenance Manager Victor Sheldon, responsible for keeping the company’s ADCO Manufacturing vertical cartoners running optimally, began experiencing substantial downtime from performance issues with the company’s gluing system, he turned to Baumer hhs hot melt gluing technology for help.

Gluing system downtime has ripple effect

Gluing system performance issues impact the entire packaging line, and downtime from Mountain View Packaging’s gluing system with pneumatically activated guns had been averaging almost five minutes per hour per line.

The gluing system downtime had a variety of causes: 1) The need to clean or change clogged nozzles that were not dispensing glue or were dispensing partial patterns on the cartons; 2) Start-ups after weekends where the pneumatically activated guns randomly wouldn’t fire at the beginning of the run; and 3) Pneumatic gun failure, due either to a leaky seal binding the needle or a sticking solenoid valve, resulting in the module not cycling and boxes not being glued.

The company’s primary objective in looking for a replacement to the technology was to reduce downtime, but there were other challenges as well, including glue gun maintenance, reliability, cost reduction (no compressed air and reduced adhesive usage), and safety.

New gun technology necessary

A potential answer came from Mountain View Packaging Manager of Operations Kevin Blocher, who obtained information on the Baumer hhs tesla and their dotting technology at PACK Expo East. Sheldon contacted Rick Pallante, Baumer hhs President – USA and Canada, who was Business Development Manager for Packaging at the time, and asked him to assess the packaging line and hot melt dispensing applicator gun issues.

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