Love life, love Schubert

Crailsheim . The name Müller has been synonymous with turning milk into top quality products for more than 100 years. Although the revolution of the packaging machinery age may not be able to claim this long a history, it too is inextricably linked to a particular name: That of Gerhard Schubert. His packaging robots have been setting whole new standards in terms of compact dimensions, efficiency and flexibility since 1984. Since September 2003, the latest generation of TLM machines has been operating round the clock at Theo Müller GmbH & Co. KG. The TLM-F44 sorting plant is capable of sorting the whole range of dairy products manufactured at Müller and generating a variety of product mixes.

What started in 1896 with the foundation of a small village dairy in Aretsried has grown over the decades to become one of the biggest manufacturers of fresh dairy produce. Today, the Theo Müller Group, which owns such well-known subsidiaries as Sachsenmilch, Weihenstephan and the Loose Cheese Factory, processes more than 2 million tons of milk every year. The Group produces not only the fresh dairy products and fruit preparations but (under the Optipack label) also the plastic pots needed for packaging. The subsidiary Culina is responsible for providing transport and logistical services.

Before the packaged dairy products such as Müllerrice, Müller Corner or Müllerlight leave the company, mixed packs of these various types are generated to guarantee that customers are able to enjoy a wide range of Müller dairy products at any time. This is where the company Gerhard Schubert comes into play, or more precisely, the TLM-F44 sorting plant. This highly compact and flexible plant, with its footprint of just 12 x 6 m, is able to implement a wide range of different sorting assignments in line with varying customer requests – a major competitive advantage, particularly considering that the whole variety of different product mixes used to be mainly prepared by hand.

The TLM-F44 is confronted by a special challenge in its sorting work: As already packaged and palletized trays and crates are engaged by the sorting plant, unpackaged and then repackaged as a mix, the units are very unwieldy when it comes to handling. This type of problem is taken care of with the greatest of ease by a dyed-in-the-wool packaging robot “made by Gerhard Schubert” – or more accurately with the aid of the Schubert VMS control system. A minor change in the electronic program selection is enough to ensure a smooth and flexible changeover to different mix pack variations at Theo Müller. The overall plant works like this:

The trays or crates containing up to six different sorts are manually positioned on six lanes, engaged, automatically unloaded and indexed forward for refilling. The products are then optically detected, individually picked up and repackaged, precisely aligned, in the form of a mix. The products are aligned using the optical detection system and inserted in the trays or crates. In this way, it is possible to sort up to 500 pots per minute, or 30,000 pots per hour. Depending on the product concerned, converting to a different format takes between five and no more than 15 minutes.

The link between the companies Gerhard Schubert and Theo Müller is a long-standing one. Kanellos Tzinieris, a Schubert staff member involved in processing the project, remembers very clearly getting to know some members of the Müller team back in 2001 who had shown interest in a Schubert packaging machine operating on the premises of a Schubert customer. This party included Gerhard Freudenreich, technical manager for central production at Müller, and Andreas Fuchs, a project engineer with Müller who was involved right from the beginning in the new project. “Of course Müller was already familiar with us before this”, explains Tzinieris, “but the SMB design we used at the time meant that we were not able to offer the optimum machine for the dairy industry. With the development of our TLM packaging robot, we really hit the bull’s-eye.“

The TLM-F44 sorting plant is constructed in a V2A version and designed to permit optimum cleaning. Six TLM-F44 modules and six TLM-F2 unpackaging modules guarantee not only trouble-free packaging processes but also maximum economy. “We completed the installation and commissioning stage at Müller in record time”, explains Schubert Project Manager Günter Rüeck, adding, “We took just under six months to complete the project, from the date the order came in through to final installation.“ The Theo Müller Group has since already installed its second TLM-F44 sorting plant. Over the past two years, no fewer than five Schubert plants have been commissioned at Müller to perform a wide range of different tasks. “All a clear sign to us that the customer is satisfied with our machines”, concludes Rüeck.