The 2008 TLM Packaging Machine of the Year places cheese slices in retail packages at Karwendel. A prerequisite for the TLM of the Year is that it is based on a good concept. In the case of the Karwendel machine, this is clearly due to the fact that three TLM-F4 robots are used for grouping. These place 200 cheese slices per minute on a grouping belt, which come from a thermoforming machine.

The attentive, qualified observer quickly notices that one of the two TLM-F44 cells is only equipped with one robot arm. As a result, there is a lot of potential should the 200 cheese slices one day become 300. The product enters from the right, past the erecting machine and the filling machine, to the TLM-F44 machines. There, the cheese slices are placed on the grouping belt in accordance with the package content. The grouping belt moves continuously to the right, controlled by the TLM-F44 robots, i.e. in the opposite direction of the boxes. These in turn run to the left from the erecting machine (right). The filling machine (center), equipped with two TLM-F2 robots, picks up the cheese slices from the grouping belt and places them in layers in the retail cartons, which have been erected and glued from flat box blanks. The TLMF2 robot, integrated into the first TLM-F44 machine, closes the filled cartons by gluing the attached lid.

One of the machine’s special features is the filling tools, which place the cheese slices in the retail cartons. The cheese slices are positioned at an angle while they pass the opening of the boxes, i.e. they are more or less ”threaded“ into the boxes. Of course, there is fast convertibility thanks to a simple tool change. Several sizes are packaged on the machine and, like all TLM machines, the Karwendel one is also immediately ready for full operation following the size change, which takes just a few minutes.

Starting product of the project: Pre-packaged Arla blue cheese in the form of a triangular segment of a circle that comes in five different weights: 100g, 125g, 150g, 200g and 225g with identical bases and hence different product heights. On the TLM Packaging line, the pieces of cheese are first gapped, marked, checked and, if necessary, stored; then a plastic lids and different labels as well as barcode labels are applied to the plastic packs and finally they are packed in carton trays.

The variety of carton trays is just as large; there are trays in which the packaged cheese is placed in single rows of up to nine packs, but also so called fan-shaped trays, in which rows of semicircles, each consisting of three cheese triangles, are packed. And as if that wasn’t enough, there are further variants due to the carton lids, closing up to three single-row trays side by side or two short fan-shaped trays one behind the other under one lid, or simply “capping” them with a long fan-shaped tray. So much for the standard program.

The line is exceedingly compact in proportion to its functionality and is operated by only one person. Format changeovers from one product weight to another are purely software-based and can be carried out in five minutes. If the packaging is also changed, mechanical changeover with mistake-proof quick-change features can be completed in about 20 minutes.