Rollon believes tertiary packaging machinery must perform without fail, showcased by its recent partnership with AMP Automation to develop palletizing systems for demanding volume requirements. In this edition of the Spotlight, the company outlines how its range of linear motion solutions deliver reliable packaging automation.
Tertiary packaging sits at the end of the production line, consolidating already-packaged product into bulk groups for storage, handling and transport, typically stretch-wrapped pallets and large containers ready for warehousing or long-distance transit. Palletizing work cells illustrate the challenge clearly. These systems stack boxes, bags, or other end-product units onto pallet bases at high volume, often using six-axis robot arms or Cartesian gantry systems built from linear actuators.
Accuracy demands are typically modest, around 1mm, but high-speed transport of moderate to heavy payloads and generous clearance are the priority. Telescopic components on the Z axis reach down to stack individual packages before retracting to clear the work cell, a design particularly suited to facilities with limited headroom such as refrigerated areas, while complementary X and Y axis actuators manage high payloads and duty cycles.
Rollon supplied several such systems to AMP Automation to support palletizers built around delta and six-axis robots. In one application, boxes weighing 8kg, 16kg and 20kg travelled via roller and spiral conveyors to a station where two robots stacked them across one of two palletizer bays, with twin gantry systems completing full pallets in minutes. Sizing the actuators correctly to handle the required payloads at speed and customizing the telescoping Z axis for tight space constraints were the key engineering challenges resolved on the project.
Franc Bejines, sales manager at Rollon, said: “Tertiary packaging machinery has to perform without fail, because by the time product reaches this stage there’s no further process to catch a mistake. That shapes every design decision, from how an actuator handles a heavy payload to how a curved guide holds its line at speed. Working with a business like AMP Automation, building palletizing systems for demanding volume requirements, is a good example of what that looks like in practice.”
Strapping machinery involves a different set of constraints. These machines feed steel, polypropylene or polyester strap around a parcel via guide channels, tension it for a secure fit, then weld the ends together.
Accuracy in these machines is relatively modest - additionally, strapping stations are often installed in areas where forklifts or other equipment may cause disturbance. Therefore, linear guides capable of compensating for misalignment become particularly valuable, allowing strap heads to efficiently move vertically or horizontally to accommodate different package sizes.
Shrink-wrapping brings its own demands again. Wrapping stations envelop packages in polyolefin or polyethylene film, spinning the platform or rotating a web-bearing arm around the package to apply a tight, protective wrap. Cycle speed is the defining requirement here, and curved linear guides form the O-shaped track that the wrapping mechanism follows, while additional linear components actuate the rollers and cutting bars that seal and slice the film.
While these examples are drawn from tertiary packaging, the same motion components carry across primary and secondary lines.
Bejines continued: “As packaging and pallet formats continue to evolve, tertiary packaging lines face more frequent reconfiguration than earlier stages of the process, whether that means adapting to new pallet dimensions or switching between product batches within the same shift. Right-sized, modular motion systems allow machinery to adapt without a full redesign, and Cobot Transfer Units – compact powered units that mount directly to a collaborative robot arm to extend its reach - can extend that flexibility even further, enabling full physical and programmatic integration with collaborative robots to support the fast changeovers that small-batch, mixed-format operations increasingly require.”
Rollon’s range of linear motion solutions span all three levels of packaging automation, with particular depth in the demanding conditions of tertiary lines, supported by application engineering to match components to specific machine and payload requirements.
For more information, visit rollon.com.
This content was sponsored by Rollon.
