From Start to Finish - Loading and Packing on a Packaging Line

Setting up a packaging line for any product includes choosing the correct filling machine or the Automatic Packing System machine, the right capping equipment, perhaps a rinsing machine and most likely a labeling machine, not to mention an electrical conveyor system in order to tie all the machines together. One of the first questions people will ask about any of these pieces of equipment is: "how many bottles per minute/hour/day will it run?" In fact, I would love to hear from a single person who was involved in the sale of a filler, capper or rinser where that question didn't arise at some point, and rightfully so.

LOADING BOTTLES AND CONTAINERS

There are several ways to introduce bottles or containers to the power conveyor system on an Automated Packaging Systems. The simplest, and least efficient manner probably, is to use manual labor to place containers on the conveyor system by hand. As noted above, the packaging machinery - the rinser, filler, capper and labeler - will only be able to perform as fast as the bottles can be loaded. For this reason, most automatic packaging lines use a different manner of presenting bottles to the conveyor.

Automatic bottle unscramblers can be utilized for this function on increased speed lines. Unscramblers allow the operator of the packaging range to dump bulk bottles into the machine, which will orient the bottles and place them on the power conveyor then. A custom designed, unique use conveyor, known as a loading or indexing conveyor, may be used in place of a bottle unscrambler as well. Rather than merely dumping bulk bottles into a hopper, the indexing loading conveyor allows operators to place bottles into preset lanes, lining up a number of rows for the main power conveyor.


PACKING BOTTLES AND CONTAINERS

Again, for higher production demands, automated equipment exists to assist in the packing process. From case erectors to case packers, case tapers, shrink wrap bundlers and pallet wrappers, a facility that needs to get a lot of product out the door in a hurry can minimize operator interaction and automate much or all of the packing process. The equipment used for automatically packing a product shall depend on the product and the package itself. Some packages will undoubtedly be placed in a carton, some dropped into a full case and others bundled in packs of twelve, twenty four or other numbers.

Again, other methods exist to gather and pack bottles and finding the best solution will mean taking into account the product, package, size and desired speed or shipping requirements. While bottles each and every minute is an important question for each packaging machine on the relative range, packagers should also consider the time spent loading and packing bottles to ensure an efficient packaging process as a whole.

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