How can packaging quality data drive manufacturing excellence?

With increasing global competition, packaging machine manufacturers want to produce the highest quality products at the lowest cost and use supplies from around the world. But when doing so, these organizations spend a lot of time and effort to collect and respond to quality-related data that ultimately results in different spreadsheets, physical filing cabinets or isolated databases or file servers that are scattered across the organization.

When this happens, data is scattered and confusing, making it impossible to aggregate the information and analyze what is happening - real-time or over time. As a result, it becomes difficult to achieve the ultimate goal, and quality begins to be seen as a constant problem rather than a quick fix.

When production turns their thinking about quality from "how do I solve this problem" into "how can I take advantage of this advantage" when they are ahead of the competition. It no longer consider what happened yesterday to respond, but to consider tomorrow or next year can take the initiative to do anything. Use quality data to connect to the enterprise and achieve end-to-end visibility, enabling organizations to achieve exponential enhancements in their product quality and business cost structure. With the right motivation, quality management platform and cloud technology, any manufacturer of any capital has the opportunity to actively up, quickly affect its bottom line and build a lasting competitive advantage.

The international market of packaging machines

The demand for packaging equipment is largely driven by the growth in demand for consumer goods, the adoption of automated packaging machines and the development of energy efficiency machines. Modern automatic packaging machines are used in different packaging stages and ensure that compared to older versions, minutes rather than hours of completion. Another key factor driving the global packaging machinery market is the growing demand for packaging robots from several end-user industries. Packaging machines play a vital role in ensuring product safety throughout the supply chain.

The global food and beverage industry is expected to grow at a significant rate. Most of the demand is expected. Emerging countries as a result of increased consumer income, ready-to-eat food needs and living standards. This increases the demand for food packaging machine, thus providing profitable market opportunities for the packaging machinery market.

Packaging machine is the world's second fastest growing packaging machinery industry market. Most of the growth in the Asia-Pacific region and emerging markets in Africa is expected to be effective. Such as increased demand for fresh food and beverage, household and personal care products and the pharmaceutical industry; the growth of the packaging machine manufacturers has contributed to the development of the global packaging machinery market.

A new packing line of multihead weigher

The multihead weigher forms core component of a new packaging line that is installed at packaging equipment. The main handling of the weight of 40g pocket size bag weighing and filling, but can also be packaged 150g flat bag, the characteristics of the shortest downtime.

The weighing device meets the speed specifications and can handle 140 bags per minute. In view of the high value of the company's products, weighing accuracy is also an important factor. The maximum weighing accuracy of 0.1g, the standard deviation of the filling bag (weighing consistency) is much lower than 1g.

Within a fraction of a second, the microprocessor determines those weighing hoppers that are closest to the weight checking machine. Unlike traditional multihead scales, you can calculate the three best combinations of weights, carefully check them, and then select one closest to the target weight, that is, a loop.

This minimizes error discharge, improves efficiency, and improves weighing accuracy and consistency. Under the weighing instrument, the exact metering part is loaded directly into the bag through the timing hopper.

Automatic Handling Of Loss In Weight Feeder

Emptying bags was labor intensive.Ingredients go through a dry, then a wet mixing process. Originally, after the dry mixing process, operators manually emptied 55-lb bags of dry mix into the wet mixing vessels before final baking. A typical metric ton (1.1 short ton) batch of dry mix filled 40 bags.

In order to overcome these difficulties, a new bulk solid treatment system is used, including sanitary stainless steel bulk bag dischargers, weight feeder dosing systems and inspection equipments.

Before the weight checking machine was purchased, the system was tested to assess the performance characteristics of the mixture of muffins and chocolate powders with bulk densities of 41 lb./c.ft and 35 lb./c.ft. Both are semi-free flow, the angle of repose between 45 degrees and 60 degrees.

The conversion from the manual dumping of 55 pound packaging to 1 ton of bulk bag's automatic handling has multiple benefits. Improve speed, efficiency, safety and product quality; reduce the number of workers and immune dust.

The new design of combination weigher

A new machine design for handling and collating small- to medium-sized pillow-style bags from one or several form-fill-sealers enables the combination weigher case packer to hit speeds of 300 bags per minute, which the packaging machine manufacturers says is the fastest system on the market. According to tna, the typical speed of existing case packers today for similar flexible packaging applications is about 120 bags per minute.

The combination weigher was introduced during interpack 2017 at a special off-site exhibit area large enough to accommodate the entire line (as well as other lines), which consists of a bag maker, a takeout conveyor, a case packer, a bag handler and collator, and case infeed and outfeed conveyors.

The servo-driven case packer’s innovation centers on continuous rotating shelves for weight checking machine that work independently from case loading to yield such high output. This patented semi-rotary bag stacking synchronizes seamlessly with the bag handling system, but these are two separate operations in the complete system.

The twin-screw extrusion processes

Every business wants to increase profits. Packaging machine manufacturers can deploy many strategies to do so that can fall across various areas of the business, such as reducing inventory, negotiating lower prices from suppliers, or increasing marketing efforts, to name a few.

To achieve the highest throughput rates, screw feeder must deliver an accu-rate and consistent feed to the extruder. To do this, the feed system must be designed according to the materials and throughput rates being fed. Easily fluidizing powders are handled well by a feeder with twin, narrow-pitch, con- cave augers, as the smaller clearances and longer path to the discharge abate the fluidization behavior. On the other hand, solid polymer pellets may become impinged in the tight clearances between these screws, so pellets benefit from being fed with a coarse-pitch, inspection equipments. Other materials, such as wet or cohesive aggregates, tend to be best suited for a belt feeder rather than a screw feeder.

As always, your twin-screw extruder manufacturer is a good first point of contact for process-optimization advice. 

The twin-screw extrusion processes

Every business wants to increase profits. Packaging machine manufacturers can deploy many strategies to do so that can fall across various areas of the business, such as reducing inventory, negotiating lower prices from suppliers, or increasing marketing efforts, to name a few.

To achieve the highest throughput rates, screw feeder must deliver an accu-rate and consistent feed to the extruder. To do this, the feed system must be designed according to the materials and throughput rates being fed. Easily fluidizing powders are handled well by a feeder with twin, narrow-pitch, con- cave augers, as the smaller clearances and longer path to the discharge abate the fluidization behavior. On the other hand, solid polymer pellets may become impinged in the tight clearances between these screws, so pellets benefit from being fed with a coarse-pitch, inspection equipments. Other materials, such as wet or cohesive aggregates, tend to be best suited for a belt feeder rather than a screw feeder. 

As always, your twin-screw extruder manufacturer is a good first point of contact for process-optimization advice. 

The structure of the twin screw feeders

Twin screw feeders are generally used where extreme flushing of powders can occur or the complete opposite with cohesive powders like pigments or those with a high resin content, which require a large entrainment area to enhance flow. The one main advantage of twin screws is the fact the faces run together and not edge to edge such that a self cleaning effect is the result. Also the pulsing effect is reduced at the outlet, particularly important with sluggish powders.

Solid screws take the form of a continuous Archimedean spiral with a shaft running throughout the screw. The vast majority of packaging machine manufacturers use this design principle. Even with the flavour powders usually associated with the snack industry solid screws are used, the only additional feature given to the screw are breaker bars set on to the screw in the trough area to break up any dead area that may form in the trough.

On occasions wire screws can be used, which take the form of a helix spring manufactured from square section material. This type can only be employed for very difficult fibrous materials, which need a larger entrainment area in the screw, i.e. minimum blade width and no centre shaft. It should be noted that wire screws have minimum surface area, which does not support serious build up of cohesive powders.

A common machine used to package goods into bags as part of a production line

A vertical form fill seal machine, also known as a VFFS, is a common machine used to package goods into bags as part of a production line. Just as the name suggests, this machine starts by helping to form the bag from roll stock. Then, the bag is filled with product and sealed in preparation for shipment. It can be used with either liquids or dry goods with all types of products and packaging.

The vertical form fill seal machine works to form, fill and seal the bag from roll stock. These machines are available in a number of sizes, including dual and single web.

In recent years, the vertical form fill seal machine has been developed to be considerably more compact. It is good for working with products that may be difficult to handle manually, such as liquids, grains, chips and certain types of food.

In some cases, this can be filling the package with nitrogen to increase product shelf life.

The Operation Of Loss In Weight Feeders

Unlike the volumetric screw feeder, a continuous Loss In Weight Feeder is a gravimetric feeder that directly measures the material’s weight to achieve and maintain a predetermined feed rate that’s measured in units of weight per time.Before operation, an operator programs the controller to discharge material at a predetermined feed rate (or setpoint) measured in units of weight per time (such as lb/hr).

Feeders are typically engineered to address a specific material at a specific discharge rate.Changes in material, operating conditions (such as ambient or material temperatures), plant vibration levels, as well as changes in material characteristics, can all affect feeder performance.Choosing a feeder that can be easily reconfigured in your plant to handle new conditions can help you solve these problems.

For a complex feeder system—such as multiple Loss In Weight Feeders feeding powder and pellets into mixers or extruders—external influences such as vibration, platform stability, and upstream/downstream equipment connections can all affect a feeder’s performance.For a complex feeder system—such as multiple Loss In Weight Feeders feeding powder and pellets into mixers or extruders—external influences such as vibration, platform stability, and upstream/downstream equipment connections can all affect a feeder’s performance.