Packaging specialist Hugo Beck provides increased levels of automated robotic solutions to global copackers in order to streamline previously labour-intensive process for promotional packs.

Multi-pack, promotional retail deals such as “Buy 2, get 1 free” are getting increasingly important for competitive food manufacturers and require individual products to be packaged together in a variety of pack sizes and configurations – a process often carried out by hand – which is both labour intensive and time consuming.

Recently, a leading global copacker recognized the challenge and approached Hugo Beck to help automate its packing process. The solution needed to present various packing processes on a single display and for ease of use, and all robots needed to be controlled via the main packaging machine control system.

For this application, the world’s leading manufacturer of horizontal flowpack, film packaging and post-print processing machines provided three Servo X film packaging machines with each line having two parallel robots and a shrink tunnel. Third-party robotics initially load the product onto the Hugo Beck packing line, which visually checks that all biscuit boxes are correctly aligned on the conveyor. Once on the conveyor, the two parallel robots pick up the biscuit boxes and group them into the desired configuration, ready to be fed into the film packaging machine.

The configuration is fully adjustable allowing both different groupings or stacking of products. After the biscuit boxes have been grouped, they are then fed automatically into the shrink-wrapper, and the multi-packing process is complete.

The customer is delighted with the new solution, which was made significantly easier by only having to deal with a single project partner to deliver the entire line – from product pick-up to robot technology right up to the packaging machine.

“Co-packers and logistics providers demand a simple, efficient and integrated solution that can adapt quickly to changing production demands”, explains Timo Kollmann, Hugo Beck’s Sales Director. “Flexibility is key for these applications, and our machine control systems enable the packaging process and robots to change automatically to new products through the saved programme functionality. This ensures a streamlined production process and optimized quality assurance through error-free automation”.