New high-speed packaging machine for product bundling

Bundling and labeling of tubular bag products
Today, those who look around in supermarkets quickly realize: Product bundles are on the advance and more popular than ever by consumers. They perceive multipacks as an especially honest type of packaging. There is no „packaged air“ – Consumers have full transparency. From chocolate bars, cookies and bags of chips through to all sorts of hygiene products: More and more manufacturers focus on the flexible bundling of products in various sizes of bundles.

It is deliberately refrained from using expensive and elaborate secondary packaging. In particular against the backdrop of the new packaging law. Additional advantage: With the product bundles, changing seasonal messages can be easily applied onto the pre-packed tubular bag via the label.

Years of experience with product bundles
Already since the year 2012 we are experts in the field of product bundling. Our first emkon. MULTIPACK machine for bundling and labeling of tubular bags impressed through variable bundle sizes and an exact label positioning. Gentle product handling and a performance rate of 600 products per minute characterized this machine [for further details go to CASE STUDY]. Additional configurations with performance rates of 200 and 400 products per minute are available as well. The portfolio was rounded off with the MULTIPACK ECO, which as a semi-automatic and stand-alone-machine with a performance rate of up to 100 products per minute enables a low-cost entry into the market.

Faster machines with improved efficiency
"With our new MULTIPACK PLUS we now have reworked and improved our packaging concept of product bundling and added our extensive experience with different products" tells Ralf Köster, sales manager at Emkon. This flexible high-speed machine now bundles and labels tubular bag products with a speed of up to 1000 products per minute* and makes them available to downstream processes (for example to our tray packer emkon. FLEXPICK TP). "The improvements are done throughout the entire machine: The inlet with a guided cam belt guaranties a homogeneous product feed. Newest 3D print technologies were used as well. Our designers developed product-specific shock absorbers, to still ensure a gentle product handling at these high speeds" explains Köster.

Also in other areas of the machine we use 3D print technology, e.g. to lower the chain weight of the product guiding and thereby to increase the dynamic of the product transport. As a result of the optimized product guiding, product and format changes can be realized in the easiest and quickest way. Therefore your production is able to react quickly to changing needs of your markets.

Reduced noise level and low operating costs
"Of course the heart of the machine is the highly flexible extraction robot. It allows for a very clean machine layout reduced to the essentials. Where previously movement- and wear-intensive components were used, such as removal arm and discharge pusher, side channel blower and vacuum technology, now the 6-axis high-speed jointed-arm robot ensures significantly reduced maintenance work, lower operating costs and a considerable increase in flexibility with regards to the products and their placement options" Köster added. "In addition the noise emission could be significantly reduced as well, due to the elimination of vacuum technology. Of course our extensive practical experience helped us a lot with the design of the machine. With the new machine, fine adjustments in the application process are done during machine operation. Additionally with this new machine generation the pressure rollers of the labeler are driveless. One aspect is of particular importance to us as well: The footprint of our machine in relation to the output per m² is extremely small." The emerging bio-economy was also kept in mind since the machine, with few modifications, is usable for alternative materials such as labels made out of grass paper as well. Thus the sustainable aspect of this type of packaging moves further to the fore. .