Shrink wrappers deliver just desserts

A total of three such machines have since replaced the L-bar machines. Downtime except for roll changes has been all but eliminated. In addition three employees have been reassigned from packaging while reduced film consumption alone will reportedly offset the cost premium over L-bar machines. The machines produced more than 500 multipacks in “just a few weeks” early this year with hardly a hiccup according to Fink.

Film consumption was also an issue management wanted to address with the former equipment. For speed the 13”Lx8”Wx4”H packs were fed with the 13” dimension as length so trim off the side seal was excessive when using 18” center-folded film. The manual machines also created film waste by allowing the operator to determine the bag length by how much film was pulled through for each pack. Hurried operators were not worried about using “just enough” film. And whether manual or automatic the L-bar machines sometimes crushed product in their jaws.

The new wrappers use Lantech’s Ever-Clean™ rotary side-seal system in conjunction with an electronic film drive. The rotary side-seal mounts a sharpened cutting wheel and a heated fusing wheel adjacent to each other on the same axis. The system allows setting of the true seal temperature not an arbitrary voltage. Because the sealing wheel does not have to cut the film the temperature can be set for the minimum needed to fuse or “laminate” the seam instead of melting the film to a liquid state which causes buildup on the seal surfaces. The heated wheel maintains light pressure against a rubber backup wheel.

“The side-seal system has proved very reliable and easy to set up for our work force” Fink says. “Film doesn’t stick to the sealing surfaces so it has eliminated the need for routine cleaning.”

Running 60-gauge 18” center-folded Bemis Clysar film Lakeview Farms currently puts about 10-15 cycles per day on each of its three Lantech shrink-wrap machines. “We’re producing more with three fewer operators on the line using less material and have virtually no rewrapping” Fink says.

“We received the third machine just as we started producing a large order in early January” Fink remembers. “We just rolled the machine in set it up and within 20 minutes it was running...and we’ve never looked back.”