Special Applications
Case packing solutions for
- Special Applications
Special Applications
AFA Systems’ world-class engineering can also complete special infeeds for our case packer modules. Sometimes, end users have unique packaging automation issues that require solving via innovative solutions. This is where AFA Systems comes in, as we can develop solutions to solve your automation problems. We do this with a cost-effective solution so end users can reap a very fast return on investment. Some notable projects for case packers we completed in the past are below.
Industrial Wipe Roll Project
The customer had to run a large case at 75 cases per minute and didn’t want to risk employee injury when people were filling the case magazine. AFA devised a solution to automatically pick case blanks from a pallet and place them in a magazine in the correct orientation. AFA utilized two AFA Systems’ Delta 3 robots with vision cameras to pick and accurately load the magazine. The case packer was designed with a heavy-duty rotary feeder to pick and erect cases on the main case conveyor. A barrel cam loading system automatically loaded the industrial wipe rolls into the case.
Dairy Milk Carton Project
The big issue with this project was floor space. The customer had minimal floor space to complete an automatic de-crating system and a case packer. AFA designed a machine that combined de-crating and case packing on one monobloc frame. The AFA gantry robot picks milk cartons out of a dairy crate and places them onto an infeed conveyor to the case packer. The case packer automatically collates the milk cartons into the correct pack pattern and then loads and seals the RSC case.
Water Filter Wrap-Around Case Packer Project
The water filters had two end caps that needed to be automatically placed on the ends of the water filter. Furthermore, the water filters had to be oriented correctly so that the end caps would fit on the ends of the water filters. AFA Systems designed a system to rotate the water filters automatically and had a vision camera to ensure the water filters were correctly oriented. After, an AFA gantry robot would automatically denest two end caps and place them on the ends of the water filter. The system would also load a leaflet into the wrap-around case. After all the contents are organized, the AFA wrap-around case packer will load and seal the wrap-around case.
Wine Bag Project
The challenge for this project was three lanes coming to the case packer. Also, the size range was extensive as the system had to run 1 Litre up to 10 Litre bags on the same case packer. AFA’s engineering designed a case packer that handles three lanes of product input and erected, sealed, and loaded cases in a very compact footprint. The system used an engineered funnel system to gravity drop bags into three (3) erected and bottom-sealed cases. The system ran up to 35 cases per minute on the 1 liter SKU and 10 cases per minute on the ten (10) liter SKU.