TECHNOLOGY REPORT

Packaging
Automation
 www.controldesign.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Trends in Technology
The future of packaging machinery design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Back to Basics
How packaged goods manufacturers approach retrofitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Technology in Action
Adaptable packaging line improves speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

AD INDEX
Balluff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

eHANDBOOK: Name of Handbook 2

 Half of all
IO-Link ports
are from
Balluff.
 www.controldesign.com

The future of packaging

machinery design
By Rick Rice, contributing editor

I
recently attended a gathering in St. Petersburg, Florida. The main goal of PMMI’s Top to
Top Summit is to put consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) manufacturers together with
original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to reflect on the state of the industry and take
a look at what the future holds for each concern.

Having been an OEM for many years before coming over to the dark side (or is it the light
side) of supporting a CPG company, I found myself with a great seat to the proceedings. It
really does help to have a view from both sides of the arena, and that is exactly what the
summit was all about.

The summit opened with a presentation by Peter Larkin, president of the National Grocers
Association, who gave a great talk on the state of the independent grocer industry and
touched on the key challenges facing his industry. A few major takeaways from this very
informative review was the growth of the outside of the grocery store, diversification in the
distribution chain and the impact of e-commerce.

By the outside of the grocery store, we are talking about the fresh fruits, vegetables, meat
and dairy products that are typically and strategically located around the outer aisles of
a store. In recent years, the outside of the store is growing larger, and the inner aisles are
shrinking by comparison. People are much more aware of the benefits of fresh, scratch-

eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 4


made food and the desire to cut down on
the preservative-laden convenience foods
of the inner aisles of the grocery store.
In the past decade, the growth of big-box
stores can be seen in every aspect of daily
life. The initial impact on the independent
grocer was a significant drop in clientele
as people migrated to the one-stop shop-
ping convenience of the big stores. The
small, mom-and-pop, neighborhood grocer
fought back by focusing on fresh produce
and the result, as mentioned above, was the
shrinking of the inner store items. National
chains of stores have sprung up that of-
fer the economic advantage of big-box
in an environment that still resembles the
small-town grocery store. The purchasing
power of buying items in bulk and distribut-
ing them without the fancy shelf front has
radically changed how consumers buy their
products.
Wholesale operations, traditionally the
storehouse for retail stores to buy products,
have opened their doors to the everyday
consumer. Not wanting to miss out on the
deal, the past year has seen large growth in
distribution companies who will sell directly
to the home consumer, without the need for
a store front at all.
The growth of e-commerce has been phe-
nomenal, and the impact on the grocery
business is only just beginning. With startup
companies now offering home delivery
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of fresh, already-chopped-up ingredients,
the home-cooked meal is becoming a
trend among the younger generation, who
seemed to miss that very important step in
their upbringing. We somehow became ad-
dicted to convenience and lost the ability to
produce for ourselves. The return to basics,
to use the vernacular of the day, is going
viral and any company that wants to stay
in view must take this into consideration to
stay competitive.
So, how does all this relate to the design of
equipment? Well, to begin to understand
this we need to look no further than the
ever-changing world we live in. The focus
on whole foods implies that people care
about what they consume. They want to
know what they are putting in their bodies,
and they want to know where those prod-
ucts come from. Consumers want variety,
and they want an expanded menu on the
table. The companies that provide these
commodities have had to respond with
rapidly increasing demands, and this di-
rectly impacts the companies that produce
machinery and processes to produce the
goods. Plainly stated, the time to bring a
concept to reality is shrinking ever smaller.
Further complicating this, consumer trends
are changing so fast that the product that
your newly minted packaging machine pro-
duces today may not even be around next
month or next year. The need to be flexible
in design, form and function is never more
apparent than it is right now.
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 5

The pace at which consumer demand is
changing is forcing marketing folks to amp
up their games in an attempt to keep their
products at the leading edge of the wave.
That has transitioned into a general trend
away from traditional packaging formats
like the standard box or bottle. “New-wave”
and “hip” and “sexy” are words used to de-
scribe these new formats. Look around the
store shelves these days, and you will find
more than a few traditional boxes with odd
angles, indents and windows, and the same
is happening for bottles and other contain-
ers. In the usual, trickle-down way, changes
in packaging means changes in the machine
that does the packaging.
A machine designer in today’s fast-moving
industry must incorporate more flexibility
than ever before. The owners of packag-
ing equipment aren’t going to want to buy
a new machine every time a new consumer
trend goes viral. The practical alternative is
to make machines that have a base function
and then add exchangeable stations that
can be retrofitted to the existing machine
as the trends come and go. Managing these
inserted options will be a key element to a
new control design.
Another key takeaway from the Top to Top
Summit was the continued need for better
cooperation and even partnerships between
not just machine builders and machine us-
ers, but between machine builders and ma-
chine builders. There is a shortage of skilled
www.controldesign.com
technical people, at least in North America,
and that means coming up with creative
ways to share the resources that do exist.
Partnerships based on confidentiality agree-
ments are an important part of these co-de-
pendent relationships. CPG manufacturers
are asking OEMs to work voluntarily with
other OEMs to provide turnkey systems.
This puts a whole new level of responsibility
on the machine designer, as now you’ll be
asked to give competing business entities
a peek under the tent as you provide your
client with an integrated system.
The subjects of IIoT and big data came up
in many conversations at the conference.
The CPG manufacturers were asked if they
thought that they needed data from the
machines they buy from the OEMs. There
was a general consensus that data is a nice
commodity, but there wasn’t a firm opin-
ion that every machine should be spewing
forth data onto an enterprise network. The
CPGs would like to have more data at hand
but are reluctant to spend large capital
to get that data where it needs to be. The
OEMs countered that they couldn’t commit
resources to providing data for enterprise
data collection without an increase in the
cost of a machine.
A sidebar that came out of the big-data
topic was that many CPG manufacturers are
faced with older packaging equipment and
processes that provide a particular chal-
lenge when trying to get into the better-da-
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 6

ta-better-decisions mindset. One trend that
was mentioned was the use of third-party
companies with pre-canned data-collection
applications. Running on smart phones and
tablets, these software-based solutions rely
on simple, local data points (smart relays
or micro-PLCs) to provide OEE data to a
server. The application then disseminates
the data into useful dashboards and reports.
The surprising revelation was how many of
the CPG manufacturers in attendance were
actually engaged in launching projects of
this nature right now. Some of the larger
CPG manufacturers admitted to trying
some data collection on their own over the
years and found the experience to have left
them with a large capital outlay that didn’t
have the desired results.
Finally, one topic that was on everyone’s
list, CPG and OEM alike, was the lack of
good technical people. Current trends show
us that the base of experienced techni-
cal people is at an all-time low point and
that poses a serious impediment to CPG
manufacturers who are looking to buy new
machines and processes. A day of reckon-
ing will come when we will be forced to
either slow down the use of new technolo-
gies or find a way to engage the younger
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generation in a way that will draw them to
jobs such as supporting the machines and
processes of today and tomorrow.
The world is changing, as it always will,
but it seems that, for controls and machin-
ery design, it is changing faster than we
can keep up with it. The trend over the
past 10 years has been to make machines
more intelligent by packing more and more
technology into the control system. With
consumer trends changing faster than the
technology can keep up with, perhaps the
next few years will point design in a new di-
rection where the focus will return to func-
tion, with technology being a convenience
to the design, rather than the focus of it.
About the author
Rick Rice is a controls engineer at Crest Foods, a
dry- foods manufacturing and packaging company in
Ashton, Illinois. With nearly 30 years’ experience in the
field of automation, Rice has designed and programmed
everything from automotive assembly, robots, pallet-
izing and depalletizing equipment, conveyors and form-
ing machines for the plastics industry but most of his
career has focused on OEM in the packaging machinery
industry with a focus on R&D for custom applications.
Contact him at rrice@putman.net.
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 7
 www.controldesign.com

How packaged goods

manufacturers approach
retrofitting
Manufacturers aren’t buying new capital equipment for very trend that
comes along, so machine builders must incorporate designs with flexibility
and enhanced modularity

By Mike Bacidore, editor in chief

A
s consumers grow hungrier and hungrier for packaged goods that satisfy their ap-
petites for variety, it is having a profound effect on manufacturers that reaches all
the way back to the machine builders that make the packaging equipment used in
these production operations. Our panel of experts answer questions on topics ranging from
changeover and retrofits to skilled employees, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and
moving components out of the cabinet.

Packaged goods manufacturers aren’t buying new capital equipment for every new
consumer trend that comes along, so machine builders must incorporate more flexibility,
or perhaps enhanced modularity, into their designs. Machines might have a base function
with exchangeable stations that can be retrofitted to existing equipment, for example.
What sorts of strategies can be created to manage these inserted options?

John Kowal | director, business development, B&R Industrial Automation, Control System Integrators

Association (CSIA) member

The requisite functionalities will be enabled by integrating a number of comple-

mentary technologies. Already we see modularity in some packaging systems. Rotary servo
fillers, cappers and labelers are prime examples of the direction machinery is headed. A
servo on each bottle plate provides individually controlled containers, and changing con-
tainer shape or size means a recipe change, not a cam change. Depending on the type and

eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 8


quantity of labels to be affixed, modules
called aggregates are wheeled in and out,
clamped in place and production started.
Linear-track-based packaging/processing
will make the term changeover largely irrel-
evant and will allow the same base configu-
ration to reduce line reconfigurations to the
time frames required today for changeover.
So a poucher module may be removed from
the track system and replaced by a rigid
container-handling module.
That is exactly the kind of flexibility you’re
asking about, and it’s just around the
corner. Multiple robot modules can be
synchronized to the movement of shuttles
on the track with the precision of a CNC
axis. Instead of change parts, the robots
will select new end-of-arm tooling from
a tool changer. Anti-slosh algorithms will
allow high-speed, spill-free movement of
open containers of liquids. The concept of
restarting without homing will be a non-is-
sue with safe motion, because lines will go
into a slower safe mode instead of hitting
an e-stop. These capabilities are all avail-
able today.
Shishir Rege | marketing manager,
networks and safety, Balluff
The process of full retrofit to
the entire production floor is definitely a
costly affair. We recommend using and
enable-and-scale strategy. For example, old
machines can be easily retrofitted to have
modular machine-mount network-enabled
www.controldesign.com
IO-Link master blocks with IP67 or IP69K
ratings. This allows bringing the technology
outside of the cabinet, where it is possible
to have future expandability, flexibility and
utilize zero floor space. With IO-Link on-
board, these devices can easily connect to
the sensors and actuators in the system to
add the intelligence for parametrization and
in-place calibration. Of course, not all sen-
sors need to be IO-Link. There are IO-Link-
enabled I/O hubs and analog hubs that of-
fer diagnostics capabilities and features for
identification and error handling, as well as
some software-based set points to enable
the error-proofing and alerting mechanisms.
With new machines though, we highly rec-
ommend investigating whether IO-Link and
RFID technologies can be integrated into
the machine and can offer the modularity in
place for easily adapting to changing needs.
Jim Hulman | process, packaging, printing,
converting—business development
manager, Bosch Rexroth
The process for manufacturing rarely
changes. Small modular improvements can
be made to increase process throughput.
Changes in customer trends typically ad-
dress micro demographics. Exiting mechan-
ical-based machinery has extensive change-
over procedures that inhibit cost-effect
short runs. Replacement of fixed mechani-
cal solutions with motion control and/or
robots provides new flexibility. With motion
control and robots, most of the changeover
becomes a recipe available from the HMI.
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 9

Francois Sychowicz | industrial equipment
industry solution technical manager,
Dassault Systèmes
A strategy would be to use IoT to compare
the initial machine configuration and its ac-
tual use. For example, if a company buys a
machine to produce in average 1,000 parts
per hour, and the real average production is
800, maybe another machine configuration
would better fit this need and allow reduc-
ing the power consumption.
TRANSFER PROTOCOL
Figure 1: One of the most critical areas for any
integration between conveyor and machine is
the transfer.
(Source: Dorner Manufacturing)
DON’T FALL INTO THE GAP
Figure 2: If the application involves transferring
small parts, a small nosebar feature that
eliminates the gap at point of
transfer is necessary.
(Source: Dorner Manufacturing)
www.controldesign.com
Stacy Johnson | senior marketing man-
ager, Dorner Manufacturing; Hartland,
Wisconsin
By their very nature, conveyors are de-
signed to integrate with other equipment.
Of course, some do that better than others.
One of the most critical areas for any inte-
gration between conveyor and machine is
the transfer (Figure 1). Some conveyors are
built with a large, rounded tail, which leaves
a gap at the point of transfer from the con-
veyor belt to the next process—machine or
equipment. This type of setup is not ideal
for small parts as they would fall into that
gap. If the application involves transferring
small parts, a small nosebar feature that
eliminates the gap at point of transfer is
necessary (Figure 2).
Since conveyors occasionally are moved
from station to station as applications
change, the transfer could become an issue.
The answer here is attaching a power trans-
fer to assist in small part transfers from one
conveyor to another, or from conveyor to
the next machine. Power transfers can be at-
tached to the infeed or exit of the conveyor.
If you are looking to repurpose a conveyor
into a different application, chances are it
can be retrofitted to fit into its new role, and
installing a power transfer is an example of
that. Your best option is to call a reputable
conveyor supplier for assistance or insight
into making that change a success.
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 10

That’s because supplier’s knowledge and
experience of material handling and indus-
trial automation is invaluable when it comes
to designing a system that integrates with
other components of a project.
Another good piece of advice when it
comes to incorporating conveyors into an
existing project or as components within
a new project is to fully understand all the
parameters related to the application. A
starting point is to consider these questions.
• What are your goals and objectives for
your packaging line?
• What is the product that need to be
moved?
• What is the weight, size and packaging of
the product?
• What is the rate of production for the ap-
plication—the desired speed of the con-
veyors?
www.controldesign.com
•H
 ow are the conveyors going to integrate
with other equipment or machinery on
the line?
• Are there any product transfers involved?
• What is the projected product flow of the
application—sorting, accumulation, curves,
inclines, declines?
• What type of environment will the con-
veyor be operating in? If it will require
cleaning, how extensive does that clean-
ing need to be?
Identifying this information will help you to
start thinking about what kind of design and
performance requirements you’ll need to
best suit your application.
About the author
Mike Bacidore is the editor in chief for Control Design
magazine. He is an award-winning columnist, earning a
Gold Regional Award and a Silver National Award from
the American Society of Business Publication Editors.
Email him at mbacidore@putman.net.
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 11
 www.controldesign.com

Adaptable packaging line

improves speed
Beumer Group helps Mexican cement manufacturer Cruz Azul to fill, palletize
and package different types of tile mortar

By Gregor Baumeister, Beumer Group

C
ooperativa La Cruz
Azul, the third-
largest cement
manufacturer in Mexico,
required an entire pack-
aging line for the flexible
and fully automated filling,

(Source: Beumer Group)

palletizing and packaging
of different types of a new
tile mortar (Figure 1). The
Beumer Group solution
won out over the competi-
tion, providing everything ADAPT AND PACKAGE
Figure 1: Cruz Azul required an entire line to flexibly bag, palletize
from one single source. This
and package the different types of tile mortar.
included the Beumer fillpac
R filling system that was cient filling of the high-qual- Gigantic bridges, high-rises,
adapted for filling different ity materials. With this new tunnels for roads, subways
materials (Figure 2). It also packaging line, Cruz Azul and sewage systems: some
included the Beumer bag can achieve its projected of the biggest construction
placer to ensure a more effi- production capacity. projects in Latin America are

eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 12


currently being built in Mexico. This makes
the country the second-largest cement
market on the continent, right after Brazil.
To hold its own against national and inter-
national competition, Mexican manufactur-
ers are developing more high-end materials.
The production at Cooperativa La Cruz Azul,
founded in 1881 and headquartered in Mexico
City, is aimed exclusively toward the domes-
tic market. The manufacturer operates four
plants with a yearly production of around
8 million tons of Portland cement, which is
only one of its end products. The main plant
is in Jasso in the state of Hidalgo (Figure 3).
(Source: Beumer Group)
FILL AND PACKAGE
Figure 2: Beumer Group supplies everything
from one single source. This includes the fillpac
filling system. It can be adjusted to the changing
parameters of the different materials.
www.controldesign.com
(Source: Beumer Group)
HIDALGO CENTRAL
Figure 3: One of the sites of the Cooperative
La Cruz Azul is in Hidalgo, Mexico. Some of the
newest products of the cement manufacturer are
eight different types of a new tile mortar.
The city is located in a region that is very
rich in limestone. As if the cement plant’s
manufacturing production isn’t successful
enough, a soccer club founded by the plant’s
employees in 1927 plays in the top level of
the Mexican soccer league, with national and
international success.
RELIABILITY AND QUALITY
Success plays an important role for Cruz
Azul. Its cement production represents 22%
of the national market. With the goal to
further increase this share, the cooperative
developed high-quality tile mortar in eight
different variations as one of its new prod-
ucts. “The quality of the building materials
is decisive in order to remain competitive,”
explains Victor Luna, managing director
at Cruz Azul’s Hidalgo facility. Distributors
and end customers also want the products
to arrive by the required date and quantity.
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 13

A small amount of the mortar is sold in big
bags, the majority however is sold in 20-kg
and 25-kg bags. This is why the manufac-
turer needed an entire packaging line that
could meet very specific requirements.
Due to varying material densities, and as a
consequence different flow properties of
the different variants of the new product
line, the filling system had to be adjust-
able to the different materials, as well as to
smaller bag sizes without extensive retrofit-
ting of the machine through the employees.
The line should then palletize precise and
stable bags, stack and package them to
protect the content against transport dam-
age and atmospheric influences.
THE RIGHT PARTNER
In March 2015, after an offer from another
supplier had already gone in and the project
was already at an advanced stage, employ-
ees from Cruz Azul who were responsible
for the project reached out to Beumer
Group for an offer. “We have been working
closely together for the past 30 years,” says
Luna. “We have a long-standing relationship
and trust in the Beumer brand.”
This trustful relationship is not surprising
because Beumer Group’s history with Cruz
Azul goes back 10 years to 2008. In an
extensive order for a plant in the state of
Puebla, Beumer Group provided and in-
stalled five bucket elevators and two pallet-
izing and packaging lines in only 26 months.
www.controldesign.com
They consist of Beumer paletpac palletizers
and the Beumer stretch hood high-capacity
packaging systems. As with the current
project, one of the requirements for this
line was to palletize and package various
bagged materials, without extensive retro-
fitting of the machines. Luna emphasizes
that Beumer Group provided Cruz Azul with
an adaptable technology with which his col-
leagues are working efficiently to this day.
The Beumer Group (www.beumergroup.
com) is a manufacturer of intralogistics
systems for conveying, loading, palletizing,
packaging, sortation and distribution. With
4,200 employees worldwide, the Beumer
Group has annual sales of about $900 mil-
lion. The Beumer Group serves industries
such as bulk materials and piece goods,
food/non-food, construction, mail order,
post and airport baggage handling.
INTRALOGISTICS
The intralogistics specialist has introduced the
newly developed human-machine-interface
(HMI) operator panel with an optimized user
interface and graphical navigation for operat-
ing the system. It offers an even more ergo-
nomic workflow to the user. This intuitive-
interaction concept helps to define efficient
working sequences. The soft-touch panel
uses pictograms to guide the user through
the machine control menus. The panel also
gives the operator access to all required train-
ing programs and content. The systems are
controlled by a Siemens Simatic S7-300.
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 14

Additionally, we developed the modular
BG software suite, which is a data-pro-
cessing system offering users optimal and
continuous control of material flows. It
can be customized to the user’s require-
ments. Products from other companies
can be integrated. Users can extend this
modular solution at any time. Process data
or reports are displayed on the BG Fusion
user interface that works for all programs.
Users can access all available data without
having to switch between applications.
They can also use the BG software suite on
mobile devices, such as tablets.
The Beumer Group Warehouse Control
System (BG WCS) module allows users to
connect the BG software suite to the ware-
house management system or the enter-
prise resource planning (ERP) system via
a network connection. As a single-source
provider, we can create an intelligent con-
nection between the individual systems
and integrate them into existing process
and inventory control systems, while ensur-
ing the communication between the differ-
ent control levels for the user.. The cus-
tomer receives everything from one single
source. The risk for error sources that
could result from interfaces is avoided.
Technicians carry out the electrical instal-
lations, as well as the integration of the
machine and system controls. We also offer
support during commissioning.
www.controldesign.com
FILLING TECHNOLOGY
MADE IN GERMANY
Beumer Group presented the fillpac R fill-
ing system to Cruz Azul. “Changing the
required parameters is simple and quick,
and the different material is filled efficient-
ly into two- to four-ply paper valve bags,”
explains Ralph Buchholz, director general
at Beumer de México. Both companies
quickly agreed on the scope and schedul-
ing for the entire packaging line and signed
the contract in April 2015.
“Cruz Azul attaches the greatest value to
the quality seal, ‘Made in Germany,’” ex-
plains Buchholz. “Those responsible for the
project even travelled to our headquarters
in Beckum, Germany, to accept the sys-
tems in person.”
In October 2015, the Beumer Group pro-
vided the systems. Three Beumer employ-
ees from Germany and one from Mexico
were in charge of installing the system.
“We had to integrate the line into the
existing building structure and bulk stor-
age technology,” reports Buchholz. “My
colleagues mastered this challenge be-
cause our solutions can be easily adapted
to technical and structural conditions.” In
this case, the engineers had to rework the
suspension for the Beumer fillpac.
PRECISE DEGREES OF FILLING
The Beumer fillpac R operates with eight
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 15

(Source: Beumer Group)
MAGAZINE ADDITION
Figure 4: The fillpac R is equipped
with a ream magazine for 700 bags.
rotating filling spouts, according to the im-
peller filling principle. This way it can safely
handle even fine-grained tile mortar. The ro-
tating filling impeller is characterized by its
speed and maximum material throughput.
“The bags are weighed during the filling
process,” explains Buchholz. The Beumer
fillpac is equipped with an electronic
calibration-capable weighing unit. It en-
sures that the bags are always filled with
the same amount of material. A special
software enables filling spouts and scale
to constantly compare the weight. If the
determined weight is incorrect, the bags
are automatically removed, discharged on
a chute and opened. The collected material
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is fed back into the process via a spillage
screw conveyor and a bucket elevator.
The system has a modular structure. A
ream magazine for 700 bags was also
added (Figure 4). This allows Cruz Azul to
further increase the efficiency of the filling
system. “We equipped the system with
the new Beumer bag placer because the
material is so fine and volatile,” says Buch-
holz (Figure 5).
Servo motors drive the application unit and
the suction gripper automatically, precisely
and energy-efficiently. All servo motors and
geared motors within the complete pack-
aging line are from SEW-Eurodrive. “SEW-
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 16
 www.controldesign.com

Eurodrive is our standard

because of its well-proven
techniques, its leading
market position and our
long-term partnership with
SEW,” says Buchholz.

The gripping system and the

application unit apply the
bag from the stack safely
onto the filling spout. The
system can pack 1,800 25-
kg bags or 2,250 20-kg bags MATERIAL SO FINE
Figure 5: The bag placer allows Cruz Azul to further increase the
per hour with the highest efficiency of the filling system.
precision. “The operator can
also adjust the Beumer bag
placer to other bag for-
mats,” explains Buchholz.
For the subsequent fully
automatic, reliable and
most of all fast palletizing,
Beumer Group installed a
Beumer paletpac layer pal-
letizer. Per hour, it gently
and reliably stacks 2,200
bags per hour in 10-bag
patterns or in eight-bag
patterns on pallets of 1,220
(Source: Beumer Group)

mm by 1,020 mm by 245
mm in size (Figure 6).

“A twin-belt turning de-

vice brings the bags in the
required, dimensionally
stable position,” explains
PALLETIZER
Figure 6: The paletpac layer palletizer can stack the bags in a
8- or 10-bag pattern onto pallets of 1,220 mm by 1,020 mm by
245 mm in size.

eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 17


TWIN-BELT TURNING
Figure 7: The twin-belt turning device accurately positions the bags quickly and gently.
Buchholz (Figure 7). The position accu-
racy of this device offers a great advan-
tage compared to conventional turning
machines, because the system’s compo-
nents move the bags without mechani-
cally deforming them. Two parallel driven
belt conveyors move at different speeds
and turn the bags quickly into the desired
position. The intelligent control of the
twin-belt turning device also takes the di-
mension and weight of the filled bag into
consideration. Exact positioning, specified
by the preset packing pattern, is achieved.
“No adjustment is necessary, even with a
product change,” says Buchholz.
www.controldesign.com
(Source: Beumer Group)
PACKED FAST AND SAFELY
The finished bag stacks are transported
over roller conveyors to the Beumer
stretch hood packaging system. It pack-
ages 110 pallet stacks per hour with
stretch film hoods with film thickness
ranging from 40 to 100 micrometers. “It
depends on the type of tile mortar,” Buch-
holz explains. “The packaging protects the
product against dust and humidity during
storage and on long transport routes and
ensures that the bags remain stable on
the pallet without moving.” To facilitate
the work for the maintenance personnel
and to ensure high system availability, the
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 18

packaging system no longer needs a plat-
form. Maintenance work, such as changing
the blades or the sealing bars, is handled
at floor level. Additional benefits include
the compact design and the resulting low
height and small footprint.
(Source: Beumer Group)
ADDED PROTECTION
Figure 8: The stretch hood packages the bag
stacks with a stretch film hood. This protects the
product against damage during transportation
and atmospheric influences.
www.controldesign.com
(Source: Beumer Group)
FORKLIFT IT OVER
Figure 9: Once the line was put into operation,
palletized and packaged products could be
picked up with a forklift and delivered to outgo-
ing goods.
“The Beumer stretch hood is extremely
energy efficient,” emphasizes Buchholz
(Figure 8). A film transport system, which
is particularly gentle on the material, intro-
duces the previously cut and sealed film
hood into the system. The sealing seam al-
ready cools down on the way to the crimp-
ing and stretching unit. Crimping can start
without any delay. This allows for the elimi-
nation of energy-consuming cooling units
and efficiency-reducing cooling times. This
way the pallets can be packaged at high
bag sequencing.
In June 2016, Cruz Azul put the line into
operation (Figure 9). “The new Beumer
packaging line brought the project to suc-
cess,” mentions Luna. This means the ce-
ment manufacturer can reach its projected
production capacity (Figure 10). In order to
ensure a trouble-free operation, the sys-
tem supplier’s competent specialists stay
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 19

(Source: Beumer Group)
AROUND THE CLOCK
Figure 10: The packaging line operates around the clock, which means the cement manufacturer can
reach its projected production capacity.
in close touch with the customer and help
out immediately in case of malfunctions or
downtimes. Beumer Group also provided
the necessary spare parts, ensuring high
availability of the systems at all times.
The new packaging line is tailor-made
for Cruz Azul’s needs, which makes Luna
happy, especially with the flexible filling
technology. It saves a lot of time and brings
peace of mind. Plus, the different types of
mortar are getting to the customer faster.
www.controldesign.com
With this project, Beumer Group has in-
stalled the first Beumer fillpac R in the
American market. The cooperation with the
system supplier will continue. Discussions
are currently held regarding new projects in
the fields of conveying and loading and pal-
letizing technology.
Gregor Baumeister is manager of the
palletizing and packaging systems division
at Beumer Group in Munster, Germany.
Contact him at gregor.baumeister@beumergroup.com.
eHANDBOOK: Packaging Automation 20