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As the consumer goods industry constantly evolves to meet demands for eye-catching products, OEM's and machine builders are more often faced with innovative and 'out-of-the-box' packages that must be transported down the production line. Snack foods, frozen items, and even liquid products like milk are now frequently packaged in bags and pouches. What these manufacturers should know is that there are solutions that can make handling these products as easy as handling any.
Top loading applications: On the production line, picking and placing bags of different sizes and materials is the challenge. Adding to this challenge are potentially fragile or liquid/viscous contents. A flexible gripping system is required, especially if multiple products are being handled on the same line. If an inflexible system is in place, downtime is most likely a guarantee.
Bag opening applications: Opening a bag with suction is a common sight to see on the production line. Here, the same challenges of size, shape and material are present. However, the thickness of material becomes a more important factor toward achieving a strong enough grip. While top-loading applications require security and reliability to prevent dropped products, bag opening applications require that as well as a strong enough grip to pull and hold apart the sides of a bag. This strong grip can prevent product damage due to issues like spilled liquid contents or damaged frozen items.
At the core of effective bag handling is a powerful, high-flow vacuum solution. Powerful vacuum allows for quick and secure grip of all bagged products. Machine designers in the consumer goods industry can also increase productivity of manufacturing with optimised vacuum system design. It is now possible to place high-power vacuum directly at the point where suction is required with a decentralised system.
Traditional centralised vacuum systems typically consist of one vacuum source providing vacuum to multiple points-of-use at varying distances. Conversely, a decentralised system locates vacuum pumps closer to the points-of-use. By switching from a centralised to decentralised system, line losses and inefficiencies can be greatly reduced.
Designing the ultimate decentralised vacuum system is made possible by positioning vacuum power exactly where it is needed. COAX is an improved design based on the multi-stage concept for creating vacuum with compressed air. It can be easily integrated into the body of manufacturing machinery with multistage cartridges, making maximum use of energy and enhancing grip by eliminating line losses and inefficiencies.
Equipping a vacuum pump with an air-saving cruise control option can further improve the system. This option automatically maintains a pre-set level of vacuum to ensure a consistent and reliable vacuum level is provided at the suction point.
Once a powerful decentralised system is in place, choosing the right suction cups for the job is the next step in successful bag handling. A suction cup for either top loading or bag opening applications must be flexible while providing strong, secure and quick grip. This means good sealing properties and leak compensation, equating to increased efficiency and production rates with fewer damaged products.
For top loading applications, a suction cup with a long, stable bellow is ideal. The sealing lip of the cup should be elongated and thin with wide diameter for increased working area. This provides a flexible solution that reduces changeover as these cups can handle a variety of bag sizes, shapes and dimensions.
Suction cups like PIAB's BL40-3P and BL-4/BL-5 present excellent options. With its better sealing capabilities and stronger, more stable bellows, the BL40-3P also allows applications to run at higher speeds. The larger inner neck diameter and specially designed high flow fitting allow the high initial flow needed for a secure grip. The cup is made of DURAFLEX, a strong, durable and elastic material with excellent sealing capability.
Featuring high initial flow, the BL-4 and BL-5 offer quick gripping speed and are suitable for level adjustments. Made of silicone material that complies with FDA standards, these new bag handling suction cups can come in direct contact with food items in top loading applications. With a wide temperature range of -60°C to 200°C, the cups easily and effectively handle dozens of products including bags of frozen food.
Bag opening suction cups need to be able to handle differences in material thickness, whether a thin plastic bag or thicker rubbery bag is being handled. For thin materials, suction cups like PIAB's F15 provide a solution that prevents the bag from being pulled into the airflow hole. This cup has cleats on the lip, allowing the air to flow into the complete lip area so that the entire lip is working instead of just the part closest to the airflow hole. Suction power is not concentrated around the airflow hole, but rather over a larger area, resulting in an even bag opening process. In the case of handling thicker materials, the U15-3 makes a good choice. It works differently from the F15 in that it prevents the bag from covering the airflow hole with a wide, enforced lip.
The BluePrint Automation Group focuses on secondary packaging solutions for flexible and other hard-to-handle packages. One of the challenges that the company has recently faced has been in finding a reliable solution for picking up plastic bags in some of its packaging applications. The company was interested in developing a solution that could securely grip plastic bags of bread and load them into boxes for shipping. Standard suction cups did not provide a strong grip on the material, resulting in dropped products and machine stoppages.
"The handling of plastic bags is a difficult packaging application that we specialise in," said R M Hoveling, R&D manager at BluePrint. "We need to handle flexible material that is constantly shifting and moving."
BluePrint tested a new vacuum solution for the handling of plastic bags with its HVP packaging machine. This solution combines PIAB's P6010 vacuum pump with Cruise Control (PCC) option and BL40-3P Polyurethane suction cup. Now a market leader in the handling of plastic bags, BluePrint hopes to continue working with its natural vacuum partner.
More distinctive and complicated packaging is bound to be on the horizon. This presents an exciting opportunity for machine builders to be just as creative with their designs. Developing partnerships with the goal to not only meet but also exceed the challenges of new package shapes, sizes and materials is a step in the right direction. Working together in preparation of the future will allow machine builders and end-users to remain one step ahead.
- PIAB Ltd is based in Barrow upon Soar, Loughborough, Leicestershire, UK. www.piab.co.uk