Conveying & accumulation

The "still water" filler

Blow-molder/labeller/filler bloc for handling non-returnable PET bottles.

December 31, 2002

Beverage: Page 300

Secondary Packaging

Freezer robot palletizer

Motoman SP-100F has internal wiring and heating elements that keeps frost and freezer burn away without the use of a protective robot jacket. Temperature tolerance is –30 deg C, making it ideal for frozen products such as food, ice cream, pizza, meat, poultry, and seafood.

December 31, 2002

Flexibles

Multiwall bags

Dairy, food, and pharmaceutical packagers can keep products contamination-free and seal in product freshness with new SteraSeal™ multiwall bags.

December 31, 2002

Secondary Packaging

Label applicator

The 3M-Matic Side/Top Label Applicator SA2000 prints crisp images with variable information using Scotch® Printable Label Tape, then accurately applies it to the side or top of a shipping carton.

December 31, 2002

Feeding/inserting/unscrambling

Headspace analyzer

Pac Check™ Model 225 headspace analyzer differs from other instruments in the series in that it is a hand-held, portable unit. It’s suitable for use in MAP meat, poultry, coffee, cheese, and snack applications.

December 31, 2002

Beverage

Golden State Vintners: Wine bottle filling

The 1.5-L bottles are shown exiting the 28-head rinser and moving through the 48-valve filler. Ryan Packaging Solutions (Napa, CA) helped with line integration.

November 30, 2002

Closures

Golden State Vintners: Wine bottle inspection

Emerging from the filler enclosure, wine bottles are conveyed through a Heuft (Downers Grove, IL) detection unit that uses a combination of photocells and high-frequency signals to check for cork presence, cork breakage, and improper fill height.

November 30, 2002

Beverage

Golden State Vintners: Capsule application for wine bottle sealing

Long slugs of nested PVC capsules are fed automatically to the capsule applicator. Wine bottles then move into the rotary station, whose tools shrink the capsules tightly around the bottle necks.

November 30, 2002

Coding, Printing & Labeling

Golden State Vintners: Labeling wine bottles

Exiting the capsule applicator, bottles move into the Cavagnino & Gatti labeler. This versatile labeler handles either pressure-sensitive (shown being applied here) or cold glue-applied labels.

November 30, 2002

Secondary Packaging

Golden State Vintners: Case packing of wine bottles

Model Flex 835 case packer from Hartness (Greenville, SC). It's preceded by a Hartness three-lane infeed section that relies on sensors to signal a gating device which lanes are in need of bottles.

November 30, 2002

Beverage

Golden State Vintners: Case coding for wine producer

Cases are conveyed past a Model 5200 hot melt ink-jet coder from Markem (Keene, NH). Twin-head, hot-melt, ink-jet coders bring the line to a close.

November 30, 2002

Filling/capping, dry

Hot fill bottles: Opting for diversity

For PET bottles, the HR process accommodates variations in product, bottle size, weight, fill temperature, blowing rate, and more. Sidel has been developing an array of solutions to respond to these many different packaging criteria.

November 30, 2002

Conveying & accumulation

Wafers won't crumble under robotic handling

Bahlsen, a German manufacturer of cakes and biscuits, has modernized a packaging line with 24 SIG Delta Robots from SIG Pack Systems AG (Beringen, Switzerland).

November 30, 2002