Smart Solutions Innovations in Food Packaging

Related Vendors

Schubert Holding AG & Co.KG

Gerhard Schubert GmbH - Verpackungsmaschinen

DÜPERTHAL Sicherheitstechnik GmbH & Co. KG

TURCK GmbH

Schubert has introduced diverse solutions for food packaging including tog.519 cobots, the all new TLM Comfort Feeder as well as the Flowpacker.

The tog.519 cobots from Schubert are of special interest to the food industry with its diverse products. The autonomous robots can be used to automate new packaging solutions quickly and easily. AI-supported image processing enables the robots to pick & place their way through unsorted products without requiring any further programming. This makes the cobots exceptionally flexible and enables them to offer food manufacturers many unique benefits, shares the company.

In times of widespread labor shortages, which can lead to production bottlenecks, intelligent solutions are required. With the tog.519 cobot, Gerhard Schubert now offers a hassle-free and highly flexible technology to efficiently close automation gaps. The mobile robot is an entirely autonomous system that can be set up at any location in production. Either free-standing or in a protective cell, alternatively combined to form an entire cobot line or even to supplement third-party systems and robots from other manufacturers.

At speeds of up to 90 cycles, the tog.519 unerringly picks up unsorted products and places them down at the designated position. Schubert’s image processing system, supported by a trained neural network is what enables this. No programming is required as the cobot “sees” what it has to do thanks to AI. This opens up a wide range of applications, with the pick & place approach to working with unsorted products immediately making the otherwise time-consuming pre-separation of products obsolete. As a result, the entire packaging process is made more efficient – regardless of whether bare products such as pasta, bars packed in flowpacks or tins of pet food are being picked, adds the firm.

Apart from this, the new TLM Comfort Feeder is ideal for products to be packed into carboard secondary packaging. It is aimed at companies who want to optimize their packaging process upstream of the machine and are seeking a cost-effective and efficient solution. It is also attractive for those who are looking for a machine with low space requirements and who want to lighten the workload of existing production staff while prioritizing high packaging output, mentions the company. Schubert developed the new TLM Comfort Feeder in response to a previously existing problem – the fact that delays in production can be caused, when the cardboard blank holding magazine on the packaging machine runs empty.

In such cases, machine operators had to respond quickly to avoid unnecessary stops. With Schubert’s new TLM Comfort Feeder, this is now a thing of the past. All it takes is to place the pallet with all the complete cut sheets into the machine. The blanks are already pre-cut and only need to be joined at a few predetermined breaking points to form a sheet. Blank sheets prepared in this way are easily supplied by packaging manufacturers on request and make the usual intermediate sheets on the pallet superfluous. Additionally, the cut-to-size sheet can be optimized to maximize the use of the packaging material. This saves material, resources and costs, whilst also paying off in terms of the carbon footprint related to transport because less weight is involved, explains the firm.

Lastly, with the Flowpacker, Schubert provides a flow-wrapping machine that can quickly and easily switch between several ‘plug and play’ sealing technologies, that are determined by the applications specific requirements.

The flowpack, formed and sealed with film, is one of the most frequently used types of packaging for food applications. Depending on the product, the flowpack film needs to fulfil certain functions in order to provide prolonged freshness of the goods and protect them from environmental influences. Today, in addition to the tried & tested cold- and heat-seal films, a wide range of other flowpack films are available – from recyclable monofilms made from a single plastic, to paper-based films and even very thick high-barrier films for products that need to be packaged in a modified atmosphere. This can be a challenge for manufacturers who have to change their flowpack films frequently as many packaging machines only use a single sealing technology. This is precisely why Schubert designed its Flowpacker flow-wrapping machine so that the sealing systems can be easily exchanged via plug & play. This enables manufacturers to efficiently switch between conventional and recyclable films and ideally position themselves on the market with the right packaging, opines the company.

In addition to the standard cold-sealing process, the variable sealing systems in the Flowpacker can combine longitudinal sealing with ultrasonics, or optionally with ceramic heating elements, together with its cross-sealing, thus providing extremely accurate and constant sealing times. The main advantage is that both longitudinal sealing processes are very gentle sealing methods that are not only ideal for heat-sensitive products, but also for sensitive flowpack films. With ultrasonic technology, the film is only heated where it is required for sealing. Sealing with ceramic heating elements is similarly gentle, in that the elements enable a precise, controlled heat supply – both in terms of temperature and duration. With cross-sealing, constant sealing times ensure consistently high sealing quality, regardless of production fluctuations and film speed, concludes the firm.

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