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Two-line strategy copes with growth

Two new lines at U.K. contract packager Axxis Intl. both rely on puck systems to handle personal care products. One line is tailored for long runs, the other for quick-change versatility. See in-plant video

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Faced with significant growth, Axxis Intl., a leading British contract manufacturer/packager of toiletries and cosmetics for prominent chains like Tesco and Marks & Spencer, recently had to choose between expansion and building anew.

“We considered upgrading our existing facility, but in the end new construction made more sense,” says plant director Paul Taylor. “A fundamental part of the plan involved finding ways to reduce operating costs, specifically labor costs, and one way to do that was to purchase automated filling lines.”

As the company designed its new facility in Trowbridge, England, management elected to install two key lines to handle the majority of the company’s output.

“We looked at our sales profile,” says project manager Jeremy Evans, “and decided we needed a high-variety line that wouldn’t necessarily be built for speed but would allow us to jump in and out fairly quickly for changeovers. Complementing it would be a low-variety line for higher speeds and high-volume runs. With that decision made, we then sought a machinery manufacturer capable of assisting us in developing both lines and getting them to full operational capability.”

The machinery manufacturer selected by Axxis was Masterfil of Aylesbury, England, represented in the United States by Masterfil USA (Chester, NJ). “They not only had advanced filling and capping equipment complete with servo motors and PLC controls, they demonstrated a very customer-friendly approach,” Evans explains.

Pucks carry bottles

Both the new lines at Axxis use pucks to carry bottles through filling and capping equipment. All the pucks have the same diameter, so conveyor widths, starwheels, lane guides, and other bottle-handling components require no adjustments or modifications when a new bottle shape or diameter is introduced.

Supplied by Advantage Puck (Mishawaka, IN), the pucks have molded into their centers whatever shape a specific bottle takes: round, oval, square, and so on. As Evans puts it, “The container could be shaped like an ‘S’. As long as it’s in a puck, it will still be presented to the fill spouts the same as any other shape.”

On the low-speed line built for flexibility, pucks are loaded by hand. A six-head Masterfil S500-AS volumetric filler hands bottles off to a single-head cap torquer. Caps are applied by hand. Bottles are depucked by an Advantage Puck unit and conveyed through a labeler from PLF (UK) Ltd., represented in the United States by Precision Coding Systems (Grantham, NH). Tray packing is done by hand. Maximum speed is 60 containers/min on bottles holding as little as 50 mL or as much as 500 mL.

The high-speed line is similar at the center but more automated at the front and back ends. Also, it has a top speed of 120 containers/min instead of 60.

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