Bagging system upgraded to automatic operation
12 Jul 2012
Knutsford, UK – Several manual bagging systems at Albis (UK) Ltd’s Knutsford site have been centralised and upgraded to automatic operation by Nottingham based Chronos BTH.
As well as distributing branded products Albis also compounds its own blends of technical and engineering thermoplastics. Previously these various compounds were manually bagged on dedicated packers on each extrusion line.
The centralised automatic packing systems are based around a ‘tubular form fill and seal’ (T-FFS) system. Tote bins of product from the individual extrusion lines feed compounds via a feed bin into a gross weigher located above the T-FFS packer.
The system is designed for easy clean-down to prevent cross contamination between different products. For this installation the T-FFS produces bags with a k-seal to create a 20 or 25 kg block-bottom bag, an integral top air vacuum system removes excess air from inside each bag.
These integral features combine to assist automatic palletisation of the filled bags by a robot palletiser, with Chronos BTH’s slide gripper palletising head. The robot palletiser positions its own empty pallets and slip sheets, before palletising filled bags. The loaded pallets are then conveyed to an automatic stretch wrapping system.
The new automatic packing system has been integrated with the Albis SAP systems. This allows all packing requirements including bag weights and product specifications for the bag labels to be automatically downloaded. Packing data from the NXT weighing controller provides Albis with information for their stock control and production purposes.
