Every industry has its own special considerations when it comes to packaging, and each defines its own specific requirements.
To meet these requirements, BEUMER Group delivers and installs complete packaging lines from a single source and tailors them individually its customers’ products and local conditions. To ensure that value chains can be efficiently organised and controlled, the system supplier relies on Industry 4.0: All systems in a line are networked and linked to higher-level production controls. This ensures consistent, end-to-end material and data tracking at all times, and the relevant figures can be monitored online.
If products from different industries are to reach customers and dealers in the best possible condition, they need to be safely filled, palletized, and packaged – yet every product has different properties. So, the packaging is subject to very stringent requirements. Some products from the chemical and petrochemical industries have high temperatures or unusual flow characteristics, which means that filled bags have low dimensional stability. Building materials such as cement, mortar, and gypsum vary due to differing bulk densities and grain sizes.
“Manufacturers in these very different industries have to maintain their position in highly competitive markets in the face of rising prices for raw materials and energy,” explains Gregor Baumeister, head of the palletizing and packaging systems business unit at BEUMER Group. And that is precisely what these industries have in common, because they’re all pursuing the goal of offering consumers high-quality goods at reasonable prices. “We’re familiar with the specific requirements of these industries. As a systems provider, we can individually design, deliver, and install entire packaging lines for our customers,” says Baumeister. Everything comes from a single source, and customers benefit from having a single contact partner. This facilitates communication both during projects and ongoing operation with regard to maintenance, repair, and modernization.
Not a single grain too little or too much
When the BEUMER Group implements packaging lines, it may sometimes look like the following: The systems provider offers BEUMER fillpac R to efficiently fill bulk materials like cement and construction materials in particular, but also other products, into bags. The systems in this series work reliably, gently, sustainably, and with the required throughput. The integrated weighing unit uses special software to communicate continuously with the filling spouts. The automatic bag-weight monitoring system determines the precise weight during filling. This ensures that the system always achieves the precise filling levels. These features enable the packaging line to work more efficiently, because sacks don’t have to be removed from the material flow due to excessive or insufficient fill weights. Depending on the requirements and the material properties – such as bulk density, material density, flow behaviour, and grain size – the BEUMER Group offers the series as an air or a turbine filling machine. Air filling machines are suitable for filling granulated and coarse-grained products with particle sizes up to ten millimetres, while turbine filling machines are primarily used for free-flowing fine-grained products like cement and gypsum. Filling performance and efficiency can be increased even more when the system is used in conjunction with the BEUMER bag placer and ream magazine.
Partner for the chemical industry
Companies in the chemical and petrochemical industries use the BEUMER fillpac FFS. The high-efficiency form-fill-seal (FFS) system forms bags from a prefabricated tubular PE film and fills them with the customer’s technical plastics, such as PE, PP, PA, and PS. As with the various BEUMER fillpac R versions, this system is equipped with a weighing unit. After filling, the system seals the bags, which weigh as much as 25 kilograms each. The system can fill up to 2,600 bags per hour.
Stacked neatly and steadily onto the pallet
The bags are made of different materials like paper, PE, or PP, and come in various sizes and weights and in different versions (flat-valve bags or valve-bottom bags). After filling, they have to be evenly stacked on pallets to ensure stability. For this task, the systems provider offers BEUMER paletpac. This system can be installed quickly, is intuitive to use, provides easy access for maintenance, and can be flexibly adapted to different packing patterns. Depending on product requirements, BEUMER paletpac can be equipped with a clamp-type turning device or a twin-belt turning device for very gentle, fast, and precise positioning of the bags.
The BEUMER Group offers BEUMER robotpac for palletizing cartons, boxes, canisters, and trays. This space-saving articulated robot is fully automated and reliably and efficiently handles even complex palletising and de-palletizing tasks. For every packaged product, customers receive a suitable gripping system that is flexible and can be automatically replaced for different products. Depending on the requirements, palletized products can safely stand in the loading area or, in the case of outside storage, they can be protected from dust, rain, and other weather conditions. With the proven high-capacity BEUMER stretch-hood packaging system, the BEUMER Group offers an efficient solution for all industries. This packaging machine is especially easy, intuitive, and safe to operate. The latest feature: The systems provider can now equip the BEUMER stretch hood A with easy-opening film. This new feature enables employees in retail stores and logistics centres to quickly and easily remove the film hood without a cutting tool when they are unpacking or repackaging goods. This significantly reduces the risk of injury and the amount of time involved. “In addition, we’re equipping all systems in a line with the same human-machine interface,” explains Baumeister. “This control unit gives employees an easy-to-understand and intuitive interaction concept that they can use to efficiently design workflows.”
It goes one step further at the end of the packaging line: The system solutions from the BEUMER Group can forward the filled pallets to a connected warehouse for storage or directly to shipping. “Because our work spans industries, we offer our customers a wide variety of perspectives,” says Baumeister. When it comes to components, the primary focus is on transport technologies like conveyors and vehicle-based systems. These go hand-in-hand with different handling solutions and manipulators such as robots, buffer, and storage modules. For these solutions, the BEUMER Group always provides a modular system, which makes it possible to expand the solutions at any time and enables them to grow with the customer’s needs.
Software from a modular kit
In order to achieve the best results and ensure consistent material and data tracking, the filling, palletising, packaging, and other system components need to be optimally coordinated. To meet this need, the BEUMER Group has designed the modular BG Software Suite as a higher-level data-processing system that can be individually tailored to specific tasks. This makes it possible to easily integrate even third-party products. Users can expand this solution at any time as needed and use it to optimize their material flows. BG Fusion, the cross-program user interface, displays process data and reports. All available data can be retrieved without having to switch between different applications.
“Depending on the complexity of the task, some applications can be implemented on the SPS level alone. Others require higher-level material-flow computers or warehouse management systems,” says Baumeister. The BEUMER Group Warehouse Control System module can be used to connect the Software Suite to the customer’s warehouse management or ERP solution via a network. With this approach, the BEUMER Group ensures communication between the different control levels. The full-service provider can intelligently link the individual systems and also integrate them into existing process control or merchandise management systems. “Because we supply everything from a single source, we avoid possible sources of error that could stem from interfaces,” states Baumeister.
24/7 online control
The BEUMER Group has a brand-new addition: the BEUMER Overall Operation Monitoring app. By downloading this application to mobile devices, operators or even management can maintain a constant overview of all relevant figures for the complete packaging line or individual systems. The app shows the current status of availability, levels of performance and quality, and the consumption of energy and compressed air. This ensures efficient operations at all times. Customers can tailor the program to meet their specific requirements. “We want to horizontally and vertically integrate all involved individuals, systems, machines, and products in a dynamic network so that operators can better organize and control their value chains,” says Baumeister. This increasing level of networking results in highly linked system structures – entirely in the spirit of Industry 4.0.
High efficiency – at all times
To ensure the high availability of these systems at customer facilities, the BEUMER Group offers international customer support from capable experts. They provide professional maintenance and service, supply spare parts, and conduct customer trainings. As part of this customer support, the BEUMER Group also offers a Residential Service program. This enables logistics service providers to hand over the responsibility for the availability, performance, and efficiency of their filling, palletizing, and packaging technology to BEUMER specialists. The full-service provider attends to customer needs with in-depth technical and logistical expertise and maintains a high level of equipment. With this service, BEUMER ensures that everything operates smoothly on-site over the long term – even worldwide.
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