Wafer manufacturer Loacker automates packaging process

Crailsheim. Wafer manufacturer Loacker based in the South Tyrol region recently commissioned a line for the secondary packaging of products at its headquarters in Unterinn. By investing in this new technology, the company was seeking not only to make  the savings required but also to bring home a solution capable of performing new and exciting future functions with the same degree of efficiency and precision as it addresses the company’s existing packaging needs. To fulfil this brief, flexibility is an underlying design requirement. This aspiration is met by using a line comprising four TLM modules from Gerhard Schubert GmbH, Crailsheim. The packaging machine has been in operation since January 2007.

The first fine wafer specialities to emerge from the family firm Loacker were produced in the mid twenties in the bakehouse of a confectioner’s shop in Bozen. Today, 17,000 tons of confectionery are produced in Unterin and Heinfels every year and exported to over 80 countries worldwide. In the international arena, the brand is positioned in the premium segment. In 2006, the company generated a turnover of 126.5 million Euro.

There have been a number of highly successful innovations over recent years which have further distinguished this confectionery collection. This success triggered the beginning of a bottleneck situation in terms of secondary packaging, as the confectionery items in their primary packaging had to be placed manually into boxes for display and shipment.

For the rising output volume and the new product variety to be processed economically, the General Management decided that process automation was the way forward. A central proviso here was that the line coordinates should leave scope for maximum entrepreneurial freedom, or in concrete terms: The packaging machine had to be guaranteed capable of adjusting without problems to the requirements of new and innovative future products and packaging concepts designed to make an impact in an ever more demanding market – even though nobody can yet say just what these new developments might look like. 

The demands of the present pose enough of a challenge already: Currently the lid is placed separately on the secondary packaging, but plans are in the pipeline to produce a blank with attached lid. The primary packaging fed into the machine takes the form of either a  flowpack which is packaged lying flat, or a  folding box designed to be positioned on edge. Although the space available for the line is limited to 22 square metres, it is required to offer sufficient future performance reserves for a planned imminent capacity increase.

Over a long association stretching back 25 years, the confectionery producer was already acquainted with one manufacturer of packaging machines capable of providing the requisite degree of flexibility: the company Gerhard Schubert, which had supplied a number of solutions over the years including a picker line for primary packaging. It soon became evident that a combination of modules from the TLM series would be ideally suited to meet Loacker’s present requirement.

When a packaging assignment is solved predominantly by mechanical means, this entails long  changeover time to adjust to the requirements of different products, packaging types and pack patterns. And it can happen that an existing line proves incapable of coping with future assignments as the necessary mechanical changes are impossible to achieve with the given machine design.

By contrast, the TLM lines supplied by Schubert are designed so that all the functions are processed in the machine’s software. The line is fully electronically controlled and driven. Mechanisms are reduced to a minimum. Individual tools can be exchanged in just a few minutes, making the system highly flexible, as the solution for any new assignment is provided via the control system: It regulates the mechanical functions to comply with the changed coordinates. What this means in practice for Loacker is that changeover between different programs is performed simply by pressing a button on the touchscreen of the operator guidance. And if completely new packaging materials and patterns have to be processed in future, all that is needed is not a new line, but a new program. Dirk Andrich, who was in charge of the project at Schubert, is quietly confident: “Whatever products are visible to the transmitted light scanner on the 360 mm wide infeed belt can also be grouped and packaged”.

The packaging solution supplied to Loacker is a compact machine comprising four TLM machine frames. At present, the line is set up for   flowpacks for the “Sticks” series (100 g) and for  folding boxes used to package the “Gran Pasticceria” series (100 g). Secondary packaging is performed in three formats with a separate lid processed from a flat blank. The  folding boxes are packaged into the carton upright on their narrow edge in two layers, with one layer made up of either six or nine boxes. The  flowpacks are packaged in five layers of three horizontally positioned “Sticks” packs each. 

The flat blanks used for the display base are stored in an inclined magazine. A tool with an erecting die fetches a blank from the magazine, applies glue to it and erects it with a single movement over the   folding box. A vacuum transport carriage conveys the carton to the filling station. 

Here, the format-specific filling tool of the TLM-F2 robot picks up one layer at a time of the grouped cookie packs, i.e. either six or nine collapsible boxes or three tubular bags, off the belt. The tool comprises suction cups and a lateral clamping fixture which deposits the packs in the carton. This method at the same time ensures that the upper edge of the carton is correctly centred during the filling process.

In the closing station, a tool picks up a lid blank from the second magazine, conveys it over two hot melt glue nozzles and folds it over the filled carton base. The vacuum transport carriage subsequently pushes the carton onto the outfeed conveyor.

The products fed from the primary packaging area are grouped in the picker station. The transmitted light scanner checks their position, and based on the scanned data two robot arms of the TLM-F44 unit place them in the required alignment on the grouping belt. During this process, the picker tool tilts the boxes arriving in horizontal alignment by 90° so that they can be packaged vertically on their narrow edge. During this continuous process, the product conveyor and the grouping conveyor run in opposing directions.

The line currently achieves an output of up to 140 packs of wafers per minute. The modular design of the line offers scope for sustainable capacity reserves: The grouping output can be increased by inserting a second or third TLM-F44 robot in the machine frame.

The packaging machine was commissioned in January 2007, just eight months after placement of the order. By the end of April, the line had already completed well over 1,000 production hours. The only operating staff now required is a single person to fill the blank magazine and top up the hot melt glue granulate, paving the way for a changeover to three-shift operation.

As regards the acquisition costs, Loacker has benefited from the excellent cost-to-performance ratio offered by the compact machine: Instead of distributing the required functions over several machines with interconnected accumulating conveyors, they are all integrated within one and the same line. This is not only substantially more efficient, but also involves a far lower space requirement.

After initial practical experience working with the newly installed line, the project managers in charge at Loacker are confident that their decision was the right one. The line is not only highly efficient, but is also characterized by outstanding precision and careful handling of the product. “Top quality is essential to ensure that consumers associate our brand name article with a consistently enjoyable experience. And to guarantee that we have the capacity to offer the retail trade ever new and exciting concepts, our production has to be able to respond with the utmost flexibility. We have achieved both these gaols. In short: Through automation we have succeeded in solving tomorrow’s packaging assignments today.”