Standing to benefit

29 October 2013



Available in North America for several years, high speed shrink wrapping systems for vertically oriented multipacks are now being made available to other markets. Here, Jim McMahon highlights the advantages of new technology from Texwrap in maximising in-line efficiency in this field.


Once found only in "club stores" in the US, multi-item packaging is now ubiquitous wherever packaged goods are sold. Combining several items in a singular package has multiple benefits to manufacturers, retailers and consumers. Consumers can capitalise on special promotions for a reduced cost per item, or purchase different forms of the same item in one variety pack; and they provide convenience in carrying several items.

For the manufacturers and retailers, multipacks promote a larger unit of sale, keep products cleaner, help prevent package pilferage, and reduce environmental impact by using less secondary packaging.

Multipack packaging exists in a number of formats including paperboard baskets, paperboard overwraps and cartons, corrugated fibreboard boxes, high-density PE handles, six-pack rings and shrink packs. The demand for shrink wrapping multipacks has particularly grown in application as a way to reduce the amount of packaging material needed, both to cut packaging costs and to better achieve sustainability initiatives.

But shrink wrapping multipacks of vertically oriented containers such as bottles, cans, canisters, jars, boxes and aerosols poses significant challenges for manufacturers.

Inefficiencies
In a conventional multipack shrink wrap set-up for wrapping vertically oriented products, once the containers are filled, they must then be laid down on their sides on a conveyor and manually turned so that their logos are facing in the same direction and/or their barcodes are hidden. The only practical way to hold the items together to keep them from rolling while being wrapped is to use a chipboard carrier tray or 'boot'.

This requires a high level of manual labour, and many manufacturers prefer to utilise contract packagers to provide this function after filling, with the containers subsequently shipped back to the manufacturer prior to shrink wrapping. This method adds costs, labour and time to the process. Typically, 3-pack containers are then fed through a horizontal shrink wrapper, which applies a polymer plastic film, and when heat is applied it shrinks tightly over whatever it is covering.

Upright product positioning
The latest technologies in vertical shrink wrapping eliminates these problems. Most critically, they can automatically wrap multipacks of products such as bottles, cans, jars or canisters directly from the fillers with the product standing upright. With no need for manual re-orienting of the products prior to wrapping, containers can now go directly from filling to wrapping to cartoning to distribution in-line, without interruption. As an important additional benefit, carrier trays are no longer required to position the individual containers for shrink wrapping.

One such system is the patent pending 914 Orbital Vertical System (OVS) from Texwrap, a leading US company in the design and manufacture of fully automatic shrink wrap systems for industries including food & beverage, paper products, printing and pharmaceuticals. Not only does it wrap containers automatically while in vertical positions, but the wrapper trims the film underneath the package, where it is hidden from view, creating a full bottom trim seal, instead of the traditional lap seal, to enclose the product.

This offers many more packaging opportunities for packaging designers, and does not compromise product presentation on store shelves.

The sealing is done with a servo orbital-motion head. It eliminates the need for the head to move with the product while the seal is being made. The head moves in an ellipse, without the back and forth motion of typical sealing heads, which dramatically increases the throughput speed registration precision of the wrapper. It is capable of wrapping 150 three-container multipacks per minute, while using the least amount of film possible.

Automated container orientation
This system enables a multipack of vertically oriented products to be automatically arranged with the labels facing precisely in the same direction while standing upright, before shrink wrapping. It uses high-speed camera technology to scan each item as it enters the system, resulting in exact movement to obtain the desired final product orientation. Servo-driven gripper wheels spin each container to a predetermined position resulting in precisely aligned labels for a strong point-of-sale visual presence. It can also orient multiple UPC codes in a variety multipack.

An important function in packaging of multipacks is to cover the barcodes of the individual cans or bottles, so that the package can be identified as a multipack and not as individual units. The servo-precision of this new vertical wrapping technology ensures that the individual container barcodes are covered by printed film, which is now used to correctly identify the unit as a multipack.

Reduced labour, material usage and operating costs, as well as faster cycle times and higher throughput are the benefits of this technology. And importantly, it brings a wider latitude of design flexibility for shrink wrapping vertically oriented products.

 



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