Innovative New Machinery at PACK EXPO: Cartoning

Cartoning wasn't the only area of interest at PACK EXPO. Click the links that follow to read more about innovations in:  Case and Tray Packing  |  Coding and Marking  |  Conveyors and Material Handling  |  Inspection and Detection  |  Labeling  |  Form/Fill/Seal  |  Food Processing & Packaging  |  Sustainable Packaging   |  Robotics   |  Pharma  |  Controls

EconocorpAmong the many cartoning systems highlighted at PACK EXPO Las Vegas was one from Econocorp that had an integrated pick-and-place feature. The magazine-fed cartoner erects a carton from a magazine of flat blanks and brings it by way of a flighted belt conveyor from Dorner to the loading station. In this case it was a plastic bottle being cartoned. When a bottle hits a sensor, a signal is sent to a Linmot linear actuator to pick the bottle with a vacuum pickup and stroke over to place the bottle into the open carton at speeds to 40/min.

“This brings us into a new age of understanding that customers want more from us,” says Econocorp director of operations Samuel Goldberg.

Watch a video of the system in action at PACK EXPO.

Historically, low density polyethylene (LDPE) bags used in dry bag-in-box operations—with bagged product being automatically loaded into paperboard cartons—present a difficult prospect for horizontally oriented end-load cartoners. Such product has often remained the realm of top-load cartoners since the “pushing” action most end-load cartoners employ is problematic. Putting standard laminated films into cartons for small loose product like cereals or crackers is one thing, since the bags are designed to be more forgiving. But another matter altogether is doing so with LDPE film bags, which are now often preferred for their mono-material structure. This is especially true for such bags holding larger loose product like frozen appetizers or frozen waffles. Horizontal pushing across a static plane creates the problems.

For instance, “frozen waffles have traditionally been difficult for a typical end-load cartoners. That’s because you have maybe two stacks of five frozen waffles, and when you push them into a carton, they tend to shingle. And once they shingle and overlap, they’re very hard to get into the carton,” says John Cooke, director of sales, Triangle. “Because our Flex Cartoner uses technology that ‘shoots’ the bagged product into the carton instead of just pushing it in, it’s a gentler loading and we don’t have problems with shingling and bags getting stuck in the openings of erected cartons.”

Here's what Cooke means by “shooting” the bags. Instead of being pushed off the conveyor into the carton by a pusher, LDPE bags with frozen waffles are conveyed at speed into the carton. Overhead belts can be added as a safety, in case there is a bulge or clump in the bag to try and settle it prior to being inserted into the carton. But when the cartoner is set up properly, the overhead belts never touch the top of the bag, the conveyor does the work of "shooting" the bag into the waiting carton.

Meanwhile, the cartons themselves aren’t resting on a plane. Instead, they’re being held in place by eight lugs, one at each corner on both open sides of the carton. When the cartons are erected and oriented for filling with bags, they are squeezed a bit to bow the top and bottom of the carton, giving the bags a larger target to hit as they’re shot from the conveyor across the air gap into the carton mouth.

“But on traditional end-loads, you’re compressing, nearly crushing the bag to make sure it gets into the carton,” Cooke added. “We’re really excited about this.”

All in all, the Triangle dry product bag-in-box Flex Cartoners are a compact solution that the company says automates the production process while providing greater flexibility, lower maintenance, and reduced downtime. Automatic carton filling machines easily load one or more bags into the same box with single, twin-, and triple-pack bag-in-box capability, in both laminated multi-layer films and mono-material LDPE. This makes these cartoners a strong alternative to top-load carton loading, the company says.

Watch a video of the new bag-in-box end-load cartoner in action.

Stick Pack cartoning

A new stick pack cartoning system with an equally new gantry robot collating and loading feature made its debut at the PACK EXPO booth of AFI Systems. In a typical application, the HD-STK cartoner receives stick packs from an upstream machine by way of a 10-lane continuous-motion infeed conveyor. Carton counts can vary widely, and speeds can be as high as 600 stick packs/min. But in the case of a 14--count carton, a cartoning cycle looks like this.

Cartons are picked by vacuum from a magazine by a servo rotary feeder and placed in a flighted conveyor. Further upstream, stick packs on the infeed conveyor are halted in a collating station where a small side-compression plate strokes in from one side to make sure the stick packs are properly aligned and straight. A gantry style robot uses vacuum pickup to pick 10 stick packs from the collation station and place them into five buckets, two per bucket side by side. After seven pick-and-place cycles by the robot, each bucket has 14 stick packs. At that point, a top compression plate comes down on all five buckets to make sure the sometimes flimsy stick packs are fully controlled. Then the stick packs from all five buckets are pushed onto a right-angle takeaway conveyor leading to the carton-loading station.

Notable is the way that a brief bit of accumulation time is built into each cycle thanks to five cleverly placed ledges just ahead of each bucket. When the robot makes its first pick from the infeed conveyor, it places all five pairs of stick packs on these ledges rather than in the buckets. This provides just enough time for the buckets to empty the previous 14 stick packs and make room for the next 14. Once the robot has stacked pairs of stick packs six-high in each bucket, the 5 pairs perched on their ledges are pushed into each bucket to complete the 14-count stack.

One other feature of the cartoning system that AFI sales and marketing manager Eric Langen says is new and notable is the patented Sure-Load Closing Mechanism. Traditional cartoners use a rotary kicker mechanism to close the trailing minor flaps. When the item being cartoned is something with some mass to it like a flow-wrapped energy bar or a toothpaste tube, this rotary kicker approach is fine. The size and weight and shape of the item being cartoned make it highly unlikely that it will somehow slide out of the carton before closing and sealing are complete. Stick packs, on the other hand, especially if the carton count is high and speeds are high, can be maddeningly difficult to control and will find a way to slip out of a carton through any available open space if given half a chance. What AFI has come up with is a way to close such open spaces. It does this by way of small metal plates mounted on a servo-driven tool that strokes forward and back on the flaps of each incoming filled carton in such a way that there simply is no way for a stick pack to escape before all carton flaps are fully closed.

“Either tuck or glue cartons can be run on the line,” adds Langen, “which makes this system especially suitable for contract packagers.”

See this stick pack cartoner in action.

Bradman Lake's new SL 903 edition, an automatic end loading machine designed for user convenience and efficient product handling, minimizes the impact on operator health while retaining efficiency.

The machine is capable of processing up to 130 cartons/min and caters to a range of packaging requirements:

• The in-feed can be adapted based on the needs of the operation.
• Whether businesses opt for robotic loading or hand-loading for specific products such as ready meals, the SL 903 is equipped to handle both.

As products move through the machine, they reach the barrel loading section. Here, they are automatically pushed into the carton. The SL 903 addresses issues of filling cartons correctly by incorporating a mechanism to detect the presence of a product. If there's no product detected, the machine won't use a carton, which optimizes resources and reduces waste, according to Joey Barfe, the technical sales manager at Bradman Lake.

Once a carton has been filled, products head toward the glue closure area. This section isn’t just limited to sealing; it’s also equipped for additional functionalities. As Barfe explains, users have the option to add various markers to the cartons, such as laser codes or inkjet codes, providing essential information or traceability.

For increased ease of operation, the SL 903 comes with an internal LED lighting system that provides practical signals to operators. For regular operations, a solid green light illuminates the workspace. When a guard door is opened, the light transitions to white, enhancing visibility for operators and maintenance personnel. If adjustments are needed, the machine's lighting will flash blue, signaling a required reset. Post adjustments, a green light prompts operators to restart the machine.

Barfe further highlights the machine's open design, allowing for good visibility that can help operators monitor the process and more easily identify issues before they escalate. More than ease of operation, the machine is designed for improved operator safety and health as well. The SL 903 has a low-level carton hopper designed for straightforward loading. This design ensures that cartons cascade up to the top where the carton picking heads are located, streamlining the entire process, while also reducing the impact to operator backs and joints.

Go here to see a video of the machine in action at the Bradman Lake PACK EXPO booth.

Debuted in the U.S. at PACK EXPO Las Vegas, a Schubert TLM cartoner sporting the new Comfort Feeder feature represented a compact, efficient, resource-saving solution to automate the infeed of carton blanks to the packaging machine, saving brand owners and CPGs money and reducing the workload of production staff.

With the Comfort Feeder, the entire pallet with the cartonboard blanks—still in the blank sheet—is packed into the machine. A Schubert F4 robot then pulls the blanks one by one directly from the sheet and feeds them into the erecting process at a rate of 60 cycles (cartons)/min.

“What we are doing is removing the manual loading of blanks into the magazine,” said Stefan Hoffmann, sales account manager, Schubert North America. “We can load a whole pallet of blanks into the magazine and let the machine run for two to three hours completely by itself. The blanks are perforated, but not yet cut. We do that kind of cutting with a down holer and the F4 pick-and-place robot… The result is a machine in a very small footprint that’s loading up to 500 bars per minute.”

With the TLM cartoner with Comfort Feeder, the sheet cutting process can be optimized to maximize packaging material utilization—saving material, resources, and costs. The combination of this new type of sheet infeed, a high erecting capacity, and loading and sealing in a small space offers users an attractive machine concept.

Also of note, Schubert’s Comfort Loader takes advantage of 3D printed parts and components. End users of this equipment can 3D print their own replacement or wear parts in-house. “That eliminates lead times for manufacturing and shipping of parts by the OEM—the end user can just click and print,” Hoffman added. “It’s very convenient, and very sustainable.”

Watch a video of the new Comfort Feeder feature in action.