5 Ways Automated Box Packaging Will Change Your Process April 8, 2021The Best-Kept Secret in Manufacturing
The technological leaps we’ve seen in the past decade have made manufacturing automation not just a feasible option, but the best one. In most cases, automation is now cheaper than human workers. However, while manufacturing automation is seeing astonishing yearly growth, packaging automation isn’t quite keeping up, despite incredible benefits. This is a massive oversight for the manufacturing industry, but we can give you the facts. Here is why every manufacturing business should include automated box packaging machines in its end-of-line process.
Automated Box Packaging Delivers on Every Level
1. An Unbelievable Boost in Efficiency
Automated packaging systems essentially offer every process engineer’s dream; saving money while increasing output. Even better, they begin showing results from the moment they go into operation. Box packaging automation has such an impressive ROI that manufacturers routinely see these machines paying for themselves in just one year.
Additionally, end of line packaging machines also have benefits that can’t necessarily be calculated in raw numbers. By freeing up employees from the repetitive tasks in packaging, you can apply that brainpower elsewhere. Automation allows our business to maximize the value of your investments, both mechanical and human.
2. Packaging Automation is the Green Move
More and more, customers are driven to buy from environmentally friendly brands. However, they don’t want to pay a premium. Automated box packaging systems give you the best of both worlds, cutting your carbon footprint even while you cut costs. The incredible precision of automation means wasted packaging products are a thing of the past.
While human workers make mistakes that waste material, overuse tape and packaging, or even require scrapping whole cases, box packaging systems use just the right amount every time. This means less needless waste in landfills, and also reduces the amount of packaging material you need to buy. Saving money while saving the environment? It’s the obvious choice.
3. Take Control of Your Risk
Successful automation requires one thing above all else, and that is consistency. That means not only having a repeatable process, but also defending against unforeseen circumstances. If a packaging employee calls in sick, that could put you dangerously behind. And even then, a slip-up on packaging can mean lost product and damaged relationships with your clients.
Automated packaging machines decrease that risk, and add that extra degree of certainty to your process. Unscheduled sick days become scheduled maintenance, giving you more flexibility to plan for the future of your business.
4. Wins for Employee Health and Well-Being
By now, we’ve well covered the cost-saving benefits of packaging automation from the day-to-day operations side, but there’s still more benefit to be had. The repetitive movements of packaging can be physically demanding and even hazardous to your workers, especially when you have productivity quotas to hit. This risks sick days and workers comp.
Automated box packaging makes a safer, less strenuous environment for workers, allowing your most experienced staff to be happy and productive for longer. By implementing these end-of-line solutions, you stand to change your whole business for the better.
5. It Pays to Look Professional
Which do you think inspires more confidence in your clients: Lopsided, uneven, and incongruous boxes or exact, clean, and consistent packaging? It’s not even a question. Looks say a lot about your business, and automated box packaging systems offer that enhanced presentation that inspires consumer confidence. It’s one of those little details that can elevate you above the competition, and keep your clients not only coming back, but expanding your brand through word of mouth.
Make the Difference for Your Process Today
The best part of all this is that any manufacturer can see immediate results. No matter the industry, everywhere there’s manufacturing automation, automated box packaging can provide amazing benefits. Wayne Automation offers modular, customizable, and smart machines to perfectly fit your needs. To learn more about how our products can work for your custom manufacturing process, contact us today.
5 End of Line Automation Products You Should Know About April 7, 2021How Automation Accelerates Your Business
With COVID vastly accelerating the market for delivered goods, many companies need to ramp up production to move products and fulfill orders. We all remember the empty shelves and shortages on toilet paper and hand sanitizer last year. But the squeeze on distributors isn’t limited to these especially dramatic examples. Everywhere, businesses are realizing the need for new solutions to get their product out the door and into the hands of customers faster, and more efficiently. The question: How do we do this? Our answer: end of line packaging automation.
The fact is, even an incredibly efficient, fully-automated production process will be severely limited if that same level of infrastructure is not applied all the way through. Traditionally, human workers have been used for this task, but there are obvious drawbacks. People get tired throughout the day, packaging workstations take up space, and sometimes compromises need to be made between accuracy and efficiency. But with end of line packaging automation, you don’t have to worry about these issues.
The Right Machines for Your Custom Application
Case Erectors
Case erectors take folded units and assemble them. This vastly increases the capacity of any manufacturing operation, as it minimizes the space and time necessary to get cases ready for packaging. Different models can assemble between 15 and 75 cases per minute depending on the machine. Different levels of automated changeover are available with different models, so you can select the most efficient machine for your application.
No matter the product, case erectors provide a massive efficiency boost through end of line automation. Household goods, food products, and toiletry manufacturers alike will see amazing returns from freeing up manpower, and reducing your space requirements. Especially now, the manufacturing world is feeling the squeeze to produce and ship faster, and we have the solution.
Partition Inserters
Covid has made items like bottles of hand sanitizer precious commodities, and inserters allow maximum efficiency and product security when shipping out units, offering superior protection from product-to-product contact. Working in cooperation with case erectors, partition inserters make it easy to quickly package multiple units securely within a single case. These machines never flip open or drop inserters into boxes either, maintaining a high level of precision and care throughout the process.
Additionally, with 40 different designs for inserter partitions, there’s no packaging process out of reach. When choosing machines for your end of line process, you can be confident the right inserter automation is there for you. And as an added bonus, they also contribute substantially to the overall package strength required for warehousing and last-mile logistics delivery.
Case Sealers
Another simple process to automate with end-of-line packaging machinery is case sealing. With the ability to use either hot-melt glue or tape, some configurations can put through as many as 80 cases per minute. Servo-controlled flap folding also ensures a clean, consistent appearance for every case. When getting a finished product out the door is a pain point, we have the solutions to make preparation for shipping a seamless part of the production line.
Case Packers
What good is a case without your product? No good at all. Tray packers bridge the gap between the manufacturing and packaging systems for your product. These machines offer a huge range of packaging configurations as well. Wraparound cases, tray packs with lids, and case packs are all available with or without partitions. From baby food and flower boxes to carpet tiles and oil filters, our modular design components ensure your process is capable of meeting your cost and schedule requirements.
Product/Case Inverters
As we already mentioned, human workers (though no fault of their own) can be clumsy, inconsistent, and fatigue over time. When your end of line process requires gentle and consistent handling of cases or products, inverters are here. Say that due to an unusual design, a case needs to be loaded upside down, or that a specific product needs to be packaged upside down for transport.
For instance, food products with excess liquid such as cottage cheese are packaged upside down to prevent liquid from pooling at the top. Inverters ensure that every unit avoids undue jostling and damage during the process. This is possible through a ‘soft touch’ system that ensures the case never leaves contact with the conveyor belt. And, like all end of line products, easily swapped parts make changeovers quick and easy.
For Your End of Line Packaging Process, Choose Wayne Automation
At Wayne Automation, we provide a wide range of packaging automation services to provide the highest level of efficiency throughout your entire process. Of course, the first step in creating an effective automated system is selecting the necessary machines for the job. To get a quote on Wayne Automation end of line packaging machines, contact us today.
Wayne Automation is pleased to partner with Rockwell Automation in the deployment of Emulate3D to support dynamic digital twin development and controls simulation. This tool provides the Wayne Automation engineering team with a unique capability to fully model our equipment designs in a physics-based environment and complete our controls testing validation ahead of production. Validating the synthesis of mechanical design and controls testing in a fully digital environment allows us to provide our equipment solutions in less time and at less cost.
“Emulate3D gives us a platform to demonstrate to our customers and integration partners Wayne equipment operating to the requirements in the early stages of a project retiring execution risk” says Jay Bachman, Wayne Automation Vice President & General Manager. “This is one more way Wayne Automation works to innovate our equipment and provide performance and reliability to our customers.”
When Wayne Automation decided it was time to bring most of its parts production back in-house, they purchased the latest Haas CNC machines to do the job. To get the machines up to top capacity, Wayne partnered with OPTO for Haas, an innovative Phillips program that provides companies with high level manufacturing expertise to help them achieve rapid productivity and quality gains.
Read full story here in Manufacturing News.
This growing East Coast brewery located near Richmond, Virginia, found value in choosing responsive, local machine builders and vendors who are intimately familiar with their lines of bottling and canning equipment. They picked a Wayne Automation case erector, six-pack erector and inserter, and case top sealer for their secondary packaging side of the line. See story on Packworld.com.
When Wayne Automation was asked to use Siemens components to operate their packaging equipment in a large brewery in Mexico, they were happy to rise to the challenge. With the help of Siemens and their local Siemens distributor, Applied Controls, Wayne was able to give the brewery exactly what they requested.
Wayne built nearly 60 packaging machines for the project including BCI Basket Carrier Erectors/Inserters, RPS Case Sealers, and SF-400 UHS Partition Inserters. The Siemens HMI on each system is programmed in both English and Spanish with the ability a toggle back and forth to simplify operation and alleviate language barriers.
Find out more about how Wayne and Siemens worked together to make this brewery a success.
Wayne Automation Corporation introduces a new vertical case erector designed to meet the needs of customers looking for an affordable, small footprint machine capable of running up to 20 cases per minute. The vertical case handling of this erector forms cases upright and discharges them on their bottoms.
The WTP Tray Packer from Wayne Automation is built with the Craft Brewery in mind and answers the backbreaking task of loading packs of ringed cans or sealed cases of bottles or cans into pre-formed trays. This compact system is only 5 x 5 feet and runs up to 15 tpm.
Wayne Automation Corporation has teamed up with Metal Edge International to create an enclosed, fully-automated edge application system for users applying cutting edge blades to cartons.The new system brings together Metal Edge’s BME (Bench Model Edger) Profile Edge Application System with a Wayne Automation Carton Feeder.
Wayne Automation packaging equipment is highlighted in the January/February 2013 PMT Magazine article: “KEEPING AHEAD OF THE CURVE – As beverage market segments blur, packaging machinery manufacturers provide the edge.”
The story provides an interesting look into how beverage packaging has changed in recent years and ways companies like Wayne Automation Corporation help beverage packagers achieve their goals. Read how Wayne’s Case Erectors, Basket Carrier Erector / Inserters and Partition Inserters play an important role in helping manufacturers move away from buying glass in reshippers and establishing an in-house box shop.
