An automatic packaging machine

Cobelplast produces 25,000 tonnes of plastic sheet on rolls every year. The company works to customer specifications, both in terms of sheet composition and roll size. This results in a wide range of roll types and weights, which are shipped on various pallets.

Cobelplast asked Ceratec to develop and build an automatic multifunctional packaging line. The machine is 43m long.

The first part of the packaging machine is the most innovative element, and had to be custom-built by Ceratec. It measures the weighing, strapping, individual packaging and labeling of rolls, as well as the placement of one or more rolls on the pallet.

• On the left-hand side of the installation, the rollers are placed on a table by an operator with a forklift truck.
• Once the operator has left the pallet truck area, the wrapping stage begins by picking up a roll by the ‘first grapple’ and transporting it to a calibrated ‘weighing cell’.
• After being weighed, the roll is placed on the ‘strapping shuttle’. This moves perpendicularly to the direction taken by the gripper in the ‘strapping roller’ system.
• After strapping the rollers, the ‘strapping shuttle’ moves back in the direction of the ‘feed grapple’.
• The ‘infeed grapple’ moves the roll to the ‘roll-winding shuttle’.
• The robot applies a silica gel sachet to the coil core, places the protective caps over the open center space and applies a label to the unwrapped coil. The ‘coil-winding shuttle’ also moves the coil perpendicularly in the direction of travel of the ‘grapple’ in the ‘coil-winder’.
• After wrapping the roll in film, the ‘roll-winding shuttle’ moves back in the direction of the ‘discharge grapple’.

The second part of the machine secures the rolls to the pallet by wrapping the roll and pallet with shrink-wrap film, after which the pallet is labeled with a transport label, and possibly a second, customer-specific label. This is a more conventional packaging line.

• The ‘discharge grapple’ places the rolls on the ‘tipper’ for palletizing. Depending on how the customer wishes to palletize, the pallet is placed horizontally or vertically behind the tipper. There are 3 depositing positions.
• Placement of the right pallet in the right position is carried out by the head operator. He receives instructions from the central control panel.
• When a pallet is complete, it moves via the roller conveyor to the ‘centering roller conveyor’, after which the rolls are strapped in the strapping machine.
• At the next stop, the pallet is wrapped in the pallet winding machine.
• Before entering the warehouse, a second robot applies a label to the finished pallet.