Intermittent, Wrap Around Glueless

Challenge 

Installed in July 2020, this project required an innovative case packer solution which could surround large 10 or 20kg bags of milk concentrate without the use of any glue or staples. The customer brief demanded that the finished cartons be able to be opened without using a knife. We were to devise an automated solution to fold and erect robust cartons which could lock themselves together and open ‘’like the petals of a flower’ on site.  

Miraka, a leader in sustainable dairy, based in Taupo New Zealand had entered into a Joint Venture with Burra Foods to supply frozen milk concentrate into the growing Chinese market where brands such as Starbucks used it in their growing coffee business.  

Two competitors had tried and failed to crack this tricky brief. It was just the kind of challenge our engineers enjoy:  we took the best elements of the previous attempts, added the RML secret robotic sauce and the rest is history as we added to our credentials in the dairy sector.  

 Solution 

Branded cardboard blanks are manually loaded into a magazine and a case is picked off the front of the magazine by a 6-axis robot. Open cases are erected and moved to one of two packing stations. As you can see in the video below, we used a vacuum to carefully lower the delicate bags into part erected cartons for finishing before moving into the freezing stage.