120 transparent prepacked dough rolls enter the TLM packaging line every production minute from the right in five lanes and are picked up by the second and third sub-machines – the first three robot arms – and placed into the infeed chain of a Fuji flowwrapping machine. After packaging into the bags, fully packed Duo puff pastry rolls are collected in the fourth and fifth TLM sub-machine and placed in the shipping carton. In the fifth sub-machine, a box erecting machine, the shipping cartons are erected and then run, from left to right, contrary to the dough rolls. The shipping carton is closed in the first sub-machine, seen from the right. Alternatively, on this line individually packed dough rolls (in printed foil) are also inserted directly into the shipping cartons at a rate of up to 120 rolls per minute. Conversion of the machine from one product/carton format to another is carried out within a few minutes.

A TLM-F44 picker line has been used to package spring rolls from The Danish manufacturer of frozen snacks, Daloon, into cardboard boxes or poly bags. The packaging process itself takes place on a Fuji horizontal form, fill and seal machine. This machine is fed on the left-hand side of the TLM-F44 line by the F44 robots, which place the spring rolls onto the Fuji chain transporter. The boxes are erected and glued from flat blanks and conveyed past the F44 robots to the right of the TLM-F44. Controlled by the optical image processing system, the F44 robots pick spring rolls off the continuous running product conveyor and fill them alternatively into the boxes or the Fuji transport chain. One picker line is capable of packaging 700 products per minute. Particularly for applications in the frozen food sector, F44 picker lines offer absolute reliability and safety in terms of packaging process hygiene.

The project brief seemed simple enough. The products fed form the freeezer belt had to be placed into transport trays. But after more detailed examination, things were not quite so straightforward . The space available was limited, and the tray handling system would also have to be accomodated inside the TLM-F44 picker line. Another complicating factor was that the product had to be packed in serveral layers with an intermediate paper sheet inserted between each. Our approach to this tricky application was to guide the transport trays through the system in several cycles and insert an intermediate paper sheet after each cycle, i.e. after each product layer. Up to 800 products per minute are inserted into transport trays.