News and events

It's not only pets that have an appetite for dried petfoods. Some packaging machine suppliers also have a taste for this highly competitive and ever changing business. In 2010 when Cambrian Petfoods, a leading independent manufacturer of petfoods needed to expand packaging capacity at their Pencader plant, they selected Concetti as the supplier of a complete line from weigher to wrapped and finished pallet.

Cambrian produce an assortment of standard, premium and super premium dog and cat food in various formats and needed additional capacity in the 1.5 to 15Kg sizes using premade paper, coated paper, PE and Alum-PE bags. The line was also required to fill PE bags made from a tubular reel, a feature that Concetti offer as a standard option.

Above all, Cambrian required flexibility in the range of pack sizes and the ability to handle different types of bag and closure methods which were vital if the petfood manufacturer was to meet the widest possible present and future demands of this complex market.

Closure methods required included simple sewing, heat sealing and pinch top. Concetti were able to provide all of these in a single IGF 1200 machine together with a self-adhesive labeller for the empty bags and a ticket applicator feeding into the sewing head. The result, installed and commissioned in July 2011, is one of the most advanced and flexible petfood packing systems in the country.

PRODUCTIVITY combined with EFFICIENCY and RELIABILITY key factors for KEMIRA CHEMICALS (UK) LTD

It only seems like yesterday when Kemira Chemicals (UK) Ltd first contacted the Concetti Group for ideas and inspiration to increase production combined with greater efficiency and reliability for their automated 25kg weighing and bag filling lines.

Kemira Chemicals are a global 2 billion euro water chemistry company serving customers in water intensive industries, the Bradford site specialising in the production of dry polyacrylamide most commonly used for water treatment and paper making.

The existing packaging lines were old fashioned, limited in packing speeds and problematic with little or no support available. Following product trials conducted in the Concetti test facility and laboratory in 2007, the Concetti Group was awarded with the supply of the innovative CONTINUA Tubular FFS machine designed for handling very demanding products and powders. Now in 2012, Kemira have installed the fourth Continua line completing the program of upgrades to their bagging systems.

The product handling starts with the Concetti electronic net gravity fed weigher designed for handling free flowing powders. In the bag filling industry, the weighers integrated are dynamic in operation meaning the product handled is fed and weighed simultaneously into a hopper prior to discharge into the bag (net weighing). Due to this dynamic operation, although the design of the weighing mechanism is important, and can influence the final performance of the weigher in terms of speed and accuracy, the most vital consideration should be focused on the weigher feed system and control philosophy. Careful analyses should be given to the materials to be handled, their characteristics such as bulk density, particle size, flowability and fluidisation in deciding the most suitable feed device.

The feed system controls the product from the feed hopper into the weighing machine. The product must be under total control throughout the weighing cycle, most commonly 2 stage feed for main and minor feed, (progressive feed is also available for high speeds using brushless motors). The final product feed cut-off must be carefully engineered and accurately controlled, mainly due to the product feed and "in-flight" material. Control of the feed rate is paramount to enable the "in flight" material to be consistent throughout, should this become erratic or variable, accurate weighing is impossible.

The weigher chosen for Kemira Chemicals was the Concetti net gravity designed for handling free flowing granules and powders, feed gates radial in construction with teflon coated contact parts and featuring internal adjustments to control the feed rates in both main and minor feed cycles.

The unrivalled performance of the Concetti weigher was demonstrated with the final test results showing an accuracy of less than 8gr sigma 1 (68% of weighments within +/- 7.5gr of the 25kg target weight).

The Concetti CONTINUA bag filling machine positioned underneath the weigher is a Tubular FFS (Form Fill Seal) designed to produce bags formed from a tube of plastic and wound into a reel. Continua is a special machine designed for handling a huge variety of demanding products including fluid powders, abrasive construction materials, corrosive granules/flakes and free flowing petro-chemical plastics.

Continua is available with many features that can be applied to specific applications such as product de-aeration probes, special coatings for product contact surfaces, bag compacting, residual air evacuation, upper edge seal area cleaning, seal cooling and inert gas purging (MAP). Dust problems are confined to history with our new generation of bag holders guaranteeing a dust and spillage free operation.

To increase the bag stability and shape, Continua also features the K-Sealing option, creating a block style bag perfect for palletising highly presentable, safe and compact loads.

For Kemira Chemicals, the accurately filled, clean, stable and square shaped bags are presented to the existing palletiser system, another example of the success of Concetti Group technology.

Dave Goult, Site Manager of Kemira Chemicals (UK) Ltd says "Concetti Continua performance and plant availability through their commitment to the highest levels of professional service made the choice for investment an obvious one. I would have no hesitation in recommending Concetti packaging machinery to anyone thinking of installing or upgrading a packaging facility".

CONTINUA FFS-MACHINE FOR BAGGING NaOH and KOH FLAKES

The system is composed of:

ELECTRONIC "CBC" GROSS WEIGHER TYPE "GROSS/CV", FEATURING A VIBRATING CHANNEL IN-FEED SYSTEM, FITTED WITH CLEANING AND INSPECTION DOOR COMPLETE WITH MICROSWITCH. CONSTRUCTION IN STAINLESS STEELAUTOMATIC BAGGING MACHINE MOD. "CONTINUA 600™" TO FORM, FILL AND HEAT SEAL POLYETHYLENE BAGS MADE FROM REEL-WOUND TUBULAR "PE".

DESIGN DATA

PRODUCT

CAPACITY

SPECIAL DESIGN CHARACTERISTICS

DRY ROOM SPECIFICATIONS

Housing frame details

Moisture monitoring of bagging room.

The relative air humidity and temperature should be checked continuously by a hydrometer installed inside the conditioned area.

Floor characteristics.

The floor will have to be featured with a slight slope, so that the washing water will be conveyed in a precise point of the area. Inside the conditioned room there will have to be no humidity sources (e.g. channel to collect the water with water inside). If there are channel or basins, they will have to be hermetically closed during the system operation; they will be opened only when the installation is washed.

Daily cleaning.

We recommend to clean each day (16 working hours) the internal weighing-bag-forming machine from the dust by using dry compressed air and/or portable aspiration machine.

Washing.

Based on the above given information, washing of the weighing and bag-forming machine should be done 1 time per week, generally on Friday afternoon/evening and before the week-end. The air conditioned system must be switched on all the time. The dry air into the product flow of the weighing/bagging machine must be in function all the time. The washing operation (internal parts where we have the product passage or the washing of the entire installation), will be done manually by the operators and before the weekend break. After 24/36 hours from the washing, the installation should dry and ready to begin to work. Together with our final documentation, we will supply the manual washing procedure that the operators need to respect.

Dry air into the product flow of the weighing/bagging machine.

Dust aspiration during the installation function.

Operator's quality.

The operators (machine operators and technicians) are the key factor for a trouble free operation of the machines. Skilled and motivated operator must be recruited and properly trained in correct operation and control of the machines as well in the daily tasks of maintenance and trouble shooting. The Client will have to guarantee a temporal continuity of the crew assigned to the operation and maintenance the installation, in order to facilitate the correct functioning of the equipment and reduce the possible problems caused by the inexperience of the operators.

The benefit of using PE film for cement packing is becoming ever more widely recognised. The cost is lower compared to paper valve sacks and the waste packaging much easier to dispose of, but more importantly the product is better protected against moisture and the end user reduces product wasted in storage or on site. All this makes PE film the material of choice particularly for premium grade and specialist products.

The new system from Concetti provides a completely sealed bag using plain LLDPE film without any micro perforations to both preserve the product quality and extend the shelf life, with outputs from 400 to 800 bags/hr depending on product and pack weights in the range 10 to 25Kg.

Using form, fill and seal (FFS) machines for fine powders can sometimes be difficult for several reasons. A fine powder does not release air trapped during the filling cycle like a coarse granular material might. Unless most of this air is removed from the sealed bag palletising will be troublesome and in extreme cases, impossible. Removing the air is usually achieved by micro perforating the film either directly or through a labyrinth arrangement so air is released slowly after filling and sealing. Unfortunately this can also allow moisture ingress over time.

For cement and premix manufactured as a fine powder intended for mixing with water on site, any moisture ingress in storage is obviously extremely unwelcome.

Concetti have long experience with these fine powders on their Continua FFS machines and already had a system for evacuating air from bags without micro perforations and so, only some small additional development were needed to increase the output speed. The new unit is a linear FFS now with six stations.

Product is dosed gravimetrically using an abrasion resistant two-speed screw feeder into a net weigher. The screw can be fitted with an automated air blast system to clean the screw flights between products where necessary and a rear outlet allows any residue to be discharged into a container with the screw running in reverse.

A dust tight filling spout allows the bag to be filled and deaeration probes carry out the first stage of air removal from the filled bag. The bag is closed and indexed to two additional stations both equipped with vibration to assist in further settling of the product before closing. Station number five also has a device for partial evacuation of any remaining air. Once the air is evacuated, the bag top is cleaned and heat applied to give a hermetically sealed pack.

Sack mouth cleaning prior to sealing is vital to ensure reliable closing. Concetti can also offer a feature where the bag top is double sealed to further ensure security of the closure.

Finally, on station six the bag top is cooled to increase the seal strength before the filled bag is released. An adjustable bag flattener on the downstream conveying line presses the bag to give a more compact and consistent shape. The result is a completely sealed, well shaped bag without excessive air trapped inside that can be easily and confidently palletised.

CONCETTI INTRODUCE A NEW GENERATION OF MULTIFUNCTION MACHINES FOR BAGS, CARTONS AND SHELF READY PACKS

The Concetti Group is a leading supplier of turn-key bagging and palletising lines for the pet food industry worldwide. Latest developments in the palletising field include a system with both robotic and conventional palletising for cartons, shelf ready packs and paper or PE bags, including an innovative bag-in-box facility.

Many dry pet food producers serve demanding markets and provide an extremely wide range of products for dogs and cats in many different sizes and formats to suit the end users. So, flexibility is a key requirement but for this application the range was essentially all in small pack weights, speed was a major factor, particularly in the palletising of bags.

The newly developed system receives products including Shelf Ready Packs from four (4) automatic carton/box filling lines and two (2) automatic vertical FFS machines, all of which were existing. One VFFS machine's output can be diverted via a collation shrink wrapping system to bring several small bags together for ease of handling. Concetti supplied the high level carton and bag conveying systems including an elevator as part of the project.

Empty pallets are stored in one dispensing system capable of holding three different sized pallets including half Euro Pallets. Each dispenser is adjustable to handle any of the pallet sizes and dispense them as requested by the system to any of four different robotic pallet build stations, using a shuttle conveyor. Each robot has two case infeed points and two pallet build positions plus a separate interlayer sheet magazine with two different sheet sizes available. The robots supplied were KUKA type KR180 3200 each equipped with a Concetti designed pick-up tool for multiple packs.

The packs are grouped and oriented to allow the printed data to appear on the outward facing surfaces, before arriving at the pick up point. Packs can be turned upside down to allow the lid to be used as the base for the Shelf Ready system.

The multi-pack pick up head allows the robots to cycle at moderate speeds and handle the cartons gently to avoid product damage and ensure the Shelf Ready Packs reach the retailer in perfect condition. The heads also incorporate vacuum cups for picking and placing interlayer sheets according to the programme. Pallets can be stacked up to 2400mm high.

Bags from one or other of two VFFS machines are handled either individually or as a collation shrink pack, by a Concetti PS-AA conventional layer palletiser. Pack weights are from 3-6Kg and speeds up to 2700 bags/hr depending on pack size and layer pattern. Bag orientation is by a double turning post system. The PS-AA has it's own pallet dispenser adustable for Euro, Half Euro or CP 1 pallet sizes together with bottom sheet dispenser. In a highly innovative development, Concetti incorporated into the design telescopic arms with suction pick-up heads to load boxes into pre-erected corrugated cases for extra protection in transit and storage.

In this way the PS-AA can handle bags separately or collated in shrink film as a convention layer palletiser, or to stack individual bags inside cases on Euro or CP1 pallets. The empty cases are fed manually at present but the system is designed to accept cases from an automatic erector in the future.

Loaded pallets are brought to a single point from the robot build stations and the PS-AA bag palletiser by pallet cross transfer systems and chain conveyor. From this position pallets are conveyed into an automatic stretch wrapper.

Control of the system is by preset programmes created, edited and managed by Concetti's easy to use Touch Screen system. The great majority of the project used standard Concetti components and systems but brought together in an imaginative way with the customer's close support to provide a system that is reliable, flexible, easy to use and maintain. The user has the widest possible choice of packaging and palletising methods to satisfy the most demanding clients

The entire system was as is usual in the Concetti philosophy, built and tested at the factory before shipment to give the customer the assurance of a rapid and trouble free start-up on site.

Concetti have successfully integrated a video monitoring system onto their bagging lines improving the operation, efficiency and troubleshooting capabilities.

By installing IP cameras in key-areas of the packaging line and providing the operator's desk with a video screen, you can monitor the key functions of the bagging line without moving position. This is time saving time and increasing the operator's daily efficiency.

In addition, should you require the helping hand of a Concetti hot line engineer, you can allow us to remotely access the video system via a safe connection providing quicker and easier support for troubleshooting.

Main benefits of this system

• Key points of the machine are under control

• More efficient, time saving bagging line operation

• Quicker and easier support available for troubleshooting

Technical features and operation of the system

• The system is based on IP (Internet Protocol) cameras, comprising:

• High Definition IP cameras

• POE (Power Over Ethernet) switch for connecting and powering the IP cameras

• NVR (Network Video Recorder)

• UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) for the main power supply of the whole camera system

• Internet Teleservice via the normal VPN connection between the client and Concetti designed for the maximum safety, convenience and ease of use as possible.

The cameras are for Day & Night Mode, IP type with LED High Definition 1.3M Pixel 1280x960 25 fps (frames per second) with h264 data compression (superior image quality) and are connected to the POE Switch (Power Over Ethernet) via rj45 special ports and an Ethernet cable for both data transfer and power supply.

Each camera sends two data streams:

• Primary: This data stream is what is actually recorded and can be set in various definitions depending on the data stream that you want to manage.
• Secondary: This data stream is sent continuously at a low resolution to allow even remote viewing "configured in the camera."

The POE Switch is also connected to the Network Video Recorder and the Teleservice.

The Network Video Recorder allows for a quick system overview by the operator through a multiple frame display.

In addition, this allows continuous recording of the primary video stream sent from (up to 8) the cameras. The duration of the recorded video depends on the hard disk capacity, the number of cameras, the clip resolution etc., and once the hard disk is full, the video is overwritten.

Many settable functions optimize the video stream management, including the possibility to divide the primary video stream into clips of settable duration recorded as high resolution files. Files can be quickly searched based on the recording time.

Teleservice Enhancement
Via the safe VPN connection of the Teleservice, the Network Video Recorder is remotely accessible by "Concetti Hotline". Concetti can thus observe the line via web streaming or download selected frames for effective troubleshooting.