13 January 2016 //
Flexible PackagingPersonal Care Products
Packaging equipment that accommodates multiple personal care products of varying shapes and sizes can drastically improve production time. In addition, the right packaging equipment can also help reduce inventory levels. When a company maintains lower inventory, they have smaller product runs and need quick changeover.
For this to occur, new packaging equipment must be easy to changeover. Additionally, maintaining product stabilization when bundling and wrapping multiple products is important since many are lightweight and/or may tip easily.
Packaging Equipment Considerations
Some common equipment models for wrapping personal care items include Flight Bar Automatic wrappers or Side Feed Automatic wrappers that can collate the product, maintain product stability and allow for quick changeovers. Side feed machines work best for packs of a single row of product (e.g., 1 x 3 or 1 x 4), whereas Flight Bar machines efficiently collate multiple row packs (e.g., 2 x 3, 2 x 4).
After selecting your equipment model, identify the changeover features from Product A to Product B that should be highlighted in a packaging line. Terms frequently used within the industry to describe equipment flexibility include:
- Tool-less changeover. The ability to adjust various parts to the machine without using wrenches or other tools.
- Servo drivers. Installed on many higher end machines to automatically adjust settings that would otherwise be done manually.
- Hand wheels. Used to adjust different product bundles and typically have digital readouts.
- Film splicing. Increase production up time with an easy film splicing option from a depleted film roll to a new film roll.
- Product specific change parts. Designed and fabricated specifically for the product, these parts are engraved with the product ID and housed within the machine for easy access. This also minimizes the potential for lost parts. Lastly, just as parts can be easily adjusted and changed over, new parts can also easily be made to account for a new product.
You can rarely “have your cake and eat it too,” but the right packaging machine selection can minimize downtime and manage inventory levels when producing multiple personal care product lines.
Contact us today to see how our innovative equipment can be tailored to your application.