BRILLOPAK is set to debut the its new high-speed Tray & Punnet PAKer at PPMA Total Show 2022.
The machine automatically packs trays and punnets into retail cases. Designed to help companies keep pace with the output of modern food and drink production lines, while also adapting and transitioning from plastic to cardboard punnet packaging, Brillopak revealed the product is the result of three years research and development.
The 150 punnets-per-minute machine combines robotics with servo-driven end effectors and then deploys them in a pick-and-place operation that is said to address many of the challenges companies face when automating this traditionally manual process.
Peter Newman, technical director at Brillopak, said, “As well as dealing with the pliability of the thin plastic punnets, customers have asked us to cater for cardboard variants too, both of which they want packed at speed and in neatly presented configurations.
“Dealing with any of these features in isolation is hard enough, but when you’re challenged with addressing all of them, simultaneously, it becomes much more… interesting. Fortunately, we have some superb engineers here and we were more than up to the task.”
Brillopak explained that in order to deliver greater speed, while still maintaining control of the pack, one robot picks and places trays into a layer formation. A second robot then closes them up into an array dimension, before picking an entire layer of punnets that fits ‘neatly’ into the receiving plastic/cardboard case.
This whole-layer approach is also said to address misalignment issues created by single-punnet pick and place. Brillopak added that different packaging materials are handled equally well on the same machine using tailored packaging recipes and package-specific end effectors.
“The primary driver behind the machine’s development was from our customers,” commented sales director David Jahn. “We were regularly being told ‘I need a solution to overcome the struggle of constantly trying to find new operators’. Automation was always going to be the answer, but it needs to deliver far more than just the ability to replace line-side personnel.
“In this market, efficiency is everything. The prices are set by the supermarkets, so our customers have to find economies in all the steps prior to final delivery. This machine is more than capable of meeting current demands and deploys a technological solution that will enable users to support what they don’t know will happen tomorrow!”
