SEQUENTIAL VS CONTINUOUS PACKAGING SOLUTION

If you work in the dairy, food, beverage, chemical, or pharmaceutical industry, you may be exploring the most efficient way to automate your packaging process. Certainly, hand-packing your products can be more labor-intensive and time-consuming which can further result in low employee morale.

ARP has introduced its Monoblock solution, which integrates overwrapping, packing, case forming, and sealing in one machine, resulting in higher production, precision, and warehouse space.

In this article, we'll demonstrate why our autonomous packing system is currently one of the best in the market and how it can help your business grow.

Here is the product page of the solution we describe in this article

First, your operator must mold a flat carton blank into a casing that can contain and hold the items intact. There are a number of corrugated cardboard packaging pieces available to assist in creating the final box as desired. Considering the number of folds - the blanks require to achieve the final shape; this procedure will require some additional time for the workers. The overwrap carton will also have to be designed.

The items must be gathered and packaged as intended; this stage will require determining the right item volume to include in the final packaging. In case you are doing multi-flavor packs (such as yogurt), an extra step - to sort the items; will be added to the procedure to ensure an equal number of each flavor. Now place items to create a solid product assembly that can be loaded into the overwrapping carton created previously.

The next step is to arrange the items in the case created in the first phase and seal them to secure the storage.

Once you have a number of final carton packs ready, place them in the larger case that was made earlier. This is a critical step as it will simplify palletizing and safeguarding the finished items throughout delivery. Also, if you use our rapid cooling solution for pallets, you'll get a proper airflow in this form, resulting in perfectly temperature retained fresh products. Learn more about this solution here.

Final case sealing.

Finally, manually palletize the cases by stacking them together.

This is an 8-step procedure that is tedious & physically demanding. A healthy worker who wouldn't make a single error during any of these steps might possibly pack 100 cases per hour, with little interest & motivation in the job as it gets very repetitive.

Introducing ARP key station sequential automation process :

a single machine that combines overwrapping, packing, case forming and sealing.

In this section, we'll go over every step we've seen thus far and explain how we can automate them.

• First, the cardboard blanks will be autonomously case formed; our solution is incredibly adaptable, and it can adjust to multiple blanks formats in a matter of minutes with no change over parts, allowing the packaging of products however desired.

• Your cartons will be folded automatically and promptly.

• A robotic arm will procure & stack the sorted items with exceptional/great precision. This can be done for a pack of 4, 6, 8 etc

• Your cartons will be sealed perfectly with hot melt application technique

• The other robotic arm will monitor the finished cartons & place them in the previously formed box.

• Finally the boxes are automatically stacked together as one pallet, this is called the robotic palletizing step

This automation procedure greatly enhances production, as service levels significantly rise from the manual operation of 200 packs per hour to over 55 000 packs per hour with our automated end of the line system.

Plus, because of its high accuracy and flexibility, it will produce perfect product cases/ packets, eliminating human error and relieving your employees of monotonous and low-interest duties.

In this section, we'll explain why our automatic packaging line is recognized as one of the best in the industry. The sequential automation method not only outperforms continuous technology but is also one of the most revolutionary features. It’s the primary factor why we can offer exceptional precision, productivity, and resource savings.

When we compare sequential to continuous, the key difference is that sequential means our machine will work in steps, allowing stops in the moving line, pausing to operate to the next step, and so on. Our sequential solution works with groups of products, but our continuous solution works with individual products.

One might assume that by analyzing a continuous process with no stops, we can enhance speed and productivity, but this could be a miscalculation.

Indeed, a sequential process ensures that each step is exactly estimated and precise, permitting items to move quickly amongst each level, leading to a faster speed and, more importantly, a far superior degree of precision, guaranteeing the items are always properly finished and packaged.

While a continuous process, demands a speed and frequency that is adjusted to each step; otherwise, it would eventually slow down and be less regulated and precise.

It's most noticeable in placement precision & reliability, which would be weak with a continuous solution. However, an excellent placement can be achieved with our sequential machine.

All subsequent actions, such as stacking products or assembling the end cartons or boxes, will be controlled by a perfectly placed item at the start of the chain. Therefore, when an item is always where it should be, the final packaging will be the same, completely sealed and organized.

When compared to other existing options, our compact & comprehensive end-of-line of line solutions allow greater time & resource optimization. Thus, with greater space, you can further expand the operations in the future.

Another added benefit is extra room for your employees, hence further improving the working conditions.