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Trends in cosmetics and HBA

PACK EXPO International never fails to impress when it comes to equipment trends and new packages introduced in the cosmetics and beauty care category.

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Next-gen equipment, affordable robotics that can work side by side with humans, and some interesting packages newly available to consumers—these were the highlights in the cosmetics and beauty care category at PACK EXPO International 2016.

Weckerle, a large and long-time provider of lip pencils and lipstick filling machines, has upgraded their 15-year old technology. Weckerle introduced a totally revamped modular filling and assembly machine (model MS) that allows higher throughput and flexible capabilities to handle difficult formulations and different packages.

Traditionally, Weckerle offered an indexing turntable where all the operations took place—from filling the molds (cavities that create the waxy color sticks called “bullets) through chilling (by recirculating chilled liquid media around the molds) to de-molding and assembling the lipstick “bullets” to the packages.

The new design took the molds out from the rigid turntable and put them on a rectangular shaped indexing chain loop, three or more molds at a time. This configuration allows more molds to circulate in the process, more time to chill (by cold air) in three programmable refrigeration zones, and a wider temperature delta. The modularity and quick changeover was accomplished by incorporating a rack mounting system for all the stations on the machine. Detachable tooling also helps. I was told by Thomas Weckerle, the owner, that the new machine can also provide 20% more throughput than previous workhorse models.

To complement the filler, Weckerle also updated their robotic flexi-picker to unscramble and feed any lipstick, pencils, mascara, lip-gloss, or similar component (packages) from any component delivery method. The new flexi-picker is portable as well, making it a standard module for Weckerle.

High speed liquid filling lines handling multiple formats (such as shampoos and conditioners) require a great deal of flexibility. Krones demonstrated its latest all-in-one solution—the Varioline robotic end-of-the-line modular system (from collation to case packing to palletizing of cases). Krones Varioline (1) is designed to deal with a wide range of primary and secondary packaging variations, at up to 52,000 containers per hour. Every Varioline is different. This is because different modules can be combined to form a customized packaging line to meet the specific range of tasks as required. In addition to the standard version, all the modules are also available in compact versions for the low and medium performance ranges as well.

Some of the benefits are related to the way the equipment was constructed and configured. For example, since the modules all have the same mechanical components, maintenance and spare parts inventories are simple. Also, the complete packaging complex can be operated conveniently by just a single operator, and access is done through large doors. Another example is short change-over times. The tools are changed semi-automatically, and this guarantees reproducible results.

Cobots galore
The extreme possibilities of modularity and flexibility were introduced at PACK EXPO by companies displaying packaging applications utilizing “Collaborative Robots” (or “Cobots”). CPG manufacturers can now afford to get into robotic packaging by deploying these relatively inexpensive but amazingly simple-to-operate Cobots, most of which sell for $25,000 to $45,000.

Although invented 16 years ago, this family of robotic arms has only recently been deployed in the CPG arena (since 2008). Unlike conventional robot arms, this one doesn’t need to be surrounded by a fence to protect facility workers, and there is no need to hire programmers to set it up. Instead, the CPG manufacturer can use line workers to perform the setup in-house, on a touch pad, without any prior programming experience. Programming is easy. Simply move the robot arm to desired waypoints or touch the arrow keys on the easy-to-use touchscreen.

So what are “Cobots”? According to Wikepedia, a Cobot “is a robot intended to physically interact with humans in a shared workspace. This is in contrast with other robots, designed to operate autonomously or with limited guidance.” These cobots come in either one-arm formats, exemplified by Universal Robots and Kuka, or two-arm formats like those displayed by Rethink Robotics and Kawasaki.

Conveying Innovations Report
Editors report on distinguishing characteristics that define each new product and collected video demonstrating the equipment or materials as displayed at the show. This topical report, winnowed from nearly 300 PACK EXPO collective booth visits, represents a categorized, organized account of individual items that were selected based on whether they were deemed to be both new, and truly innovative, based on decades of combined editorial experience in experiencing and evaluating PACK EXPO products.
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Conveying Innovations Report
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Break out of the ordinary: see what’s new in packaging & processing!