Focused on organic coffee supplied by coffee growers in Latin America, Mayorga Organics has steadily added automated packaging equipment to its Rockville, Maryland, base of operations. The latest machine to be installed, a Model 8SG-200A eight-station rotary pre-made pouch filler from Viking Masek, fills both 2- and 5-lb gusseted pouches. It’s the third pouching machine the firm has purchased from Viking Masek.
“We hit a point where we found ourselves periodically adding a temporary second shift to meet surges in demand,” says director of operations Andy Ascencio. “By investing in this machine, we can run 32 bags/min with just three people. One feeds the pouches and two take care of manually erecting and filling corrugated cases.” Additional opportunities for automation, he adds, are now being explored with Viking Masek.
Shown here is a single bag as it arrives in the station where the auger filler drops product in.
Vacuum grippers pick pouches one at a time from an infeed station and present each pouch to one of eight mechanical grippers that carries it through the filling process. A burst of air fully opens the pouch at station two. At station three, an ink-jet printer from Keyence marks each pouch with a date code. Next, the auger filler drops whole beans or ground coffee into the pouch at station four, and then the pouch pauses at station five where the contents are being settled via a mechanical striking device. The quad seals are tucked in and the bag is heat-sealed at station seven, followed by the bag discharge at the eighth and final station.
Ascencio says he is especially pleased with how easily the pouch-filling machine can go from 2-lb to 5-lb sizes. “It’s all done on the HMI screen, no tools needed,” he says. “From the width of the pouch gripper to the speed of the date coder to the number of revolutions the auger filler needs to make—it’s all adjusted by tapping a few buttons. The only manual adjustment is a quick twist of a knob at the pouch-feeding station.” PW
