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From a palletizing point of view, there are many advantages to using carton packaging. The cartons range in size from 330 mm to 500 mm in length, from 250 mm to 450 mm in width, and from 150 mm to 380 mm in height. Thick corrugated cartons also allow for rough handling without causing damage to the product.
Both packaging trends have become increasingly popular over the past five years and have also had a profound impact on the design of palletizers. The first trend is the emergence of warehouse supermarkets and the resulting packaging changes. The second trend is to reduce costs and reduce the amount of packaging pressure.
Warehouse supermarket
The development of warehouse supermarkets forces factories to cater to their product needs. The main difference between warehouse supermarkets and traditional retail stores is that products are displayed differently. Retail stores provide customers with individually packaged products neatly placed on shelves. And warehouse supermarkets provide customers with bundles or larger packages, usually on pallets. This idea has led to a series of changes in the packaging process.
Display box
Warehousing supermarkets require manufacturers to place some products in four high-angle columns, but with a short side of the cartons. For warehouse supermarkets, this display box has more benefits - easy handling and handling, and it is not easy to fold.
However, the main challenge of this type of packaging is that if the product is not handled carefully from the case packer to the stretch film wrapping machine, the product will fall out of the short side of the carton. Each time the carton changes direction, stops, or starts, the inner product has the possibility of dumping. Therefore, be careful when turning, accelerating, and decelerating the carton.
Another challenge that this product brings is that it requires stacking between each layer when stacked.
Small carton
For some products, warehouse supermarkets will only be loaded with a small amount of cartons. For example, a retail store will pick up a large carton containing 24 bottles of shampoo, return to the store to open the large carton, and put all the shampoo on the shelf. Now warehouse supermarkets only want cartons containing 4 bottles of shampoo. The purpose is that the customer is likely to buy all the 4 bottles of shampoo.
Traditional roller conveyor belts and palletizing designs are not suitable for small cartons. Most closed center conveyors are designed for 48 mm and have a center-to-center distance of 62 mm. This means that when the product packaging is less than 125 mm, the roller design is not suitable.
Print design
Warehouse supermarkets are increasingly looking to use attractive packaging instead of brown shipping corrugated cartons to attract customers' attention. Some manufacturers will be ready to put the product "puppet".
Corrugated packaging is very durable and will not show any damage even in heavy handling. Complex printing and packaging must be handled more carefully, otherwise scratches and scratches are easily visible.
Reduce packaging costs
There are two aspects to reducing packaging costs. The first is direct packaging costs. Simply changing the thickness of the corrugated box can have a big impact on the cost structure of the product. Manufacturers are looking for ways to reduce the thickness of product packaging and the thickness of corrugated boxes. They also want to use shrink film instead of more expensive corrugated paper.
The second is indirect packaging costs. This includes the transportation costs and the costs to the retail location and the handling of packaging due to the weight and size of the product.
Thinner packaging and carton
Manufacturers continue to seek ways to reduce the cost of product packaging and shipping boxes. However, thinner packaging and cartons make the product more vulnerable to damage. Therefore, gentle handling and smooth conveying are more necessary.
Pallets and liners instead of carton
An obvious trend in packaging is the replacement of fully-enveloped cartons with trays and shrink films. In addition, insiders have proposed using a complete shrink film to replace corrugated liners or trays, and many manufacturers are trying to use this shrink film instead of all corrugated paper packaging.
Products without corrugated paper at the bottom of the package will bring two new problems when palletizing. The first is the stability of the products packed together with a shrink film. If the product is not tight enough, problems such as the transport of the traditional roller surface occur. The second is that the bottom of a shrink-wrapped can or PET bottle is in direct contact with the conveyor roller, which may cause transport problems and cause product damage.
Sliding pallets or yards instead of pallets
An ancient trend is being revived: Instead of pallets as a traditional palletizing method, a pallet product or palletized product is used. This makes international freight no longer take up more space due to pallets. It also saves the cost of pallets.
Palletizer improvement
These new packaging trends have caused many traditional automated palletizing methods to be revisited and changed.
In addition, this also makes the palletizer more modular. A series of modules can be added to the palletizer to meet the needs of the product being produced.
Plastic conveyor belt instead of roller conveyor
Intralox and other manufacturers have pioneered the use of plastic tape or "pad surface" conveyors to solve these challenges. The surface replaces the traditional idler.
Conveyor conveyors are ideal for transporting palletized pallets for palletizing products or pallets. Not only does it provide a completely flat surface for the product, but because the head and tail have a small tooth chain, the conveyors can be located very close together, minimizing the gap.
Gentle treatment concept
The core concepts include deceleration and acceleration on start-up after the product arrives, and a smooth transition when the product changes direction. The gentle handling concept also includes some mechanical issues and electronic control issues.
The main mechanical problem is that when using the crash rotator and the stop plate to place the cylinder in an air-cushion state, the mechanical transition point is also changed to allow a smooth flow between the segments. From an electronic control point of view, the use of variable frequency drives on the main engine can better control the acceleration and deceleration of the product.
These concepts are often used when thin product packaging and cartons are required. This is also used for display boxes.
Gentle rotation
Care must be taken when turning the box. A gentle rotation or differential roller rotator is required. To create a palletizing pattern, you need to turn the box. The traditional method is collision rotation. The box enters a board, and the board extends to the path of the box. The corners of the package contact the plate and the rollers push the back of the package 90 degrees.
A gentle turning or differential roller rotator uses a variable frequency drive set reverse roller. A carton is centered on the counter roller and is driven faster on one side than on the opposite side. The simplest operation is done in one area. One side of the roller is driven by a variable frequency drive, and the other side is a fixed drive. The box enters the middle area of ​​the conveyor belt. Half of the box is supported by the variable frequency driven idler and the other half is supported by a fixed speed idler. If you do not need to turn the box, then the side of the variable speed drive will be matched with the fixed speed side, so that the direction of the box remains unchanged. If the box needs to be turned, the side of the variable speed drive will accelerate, rotating one side of the box around the faster idler. After the box was rotated 90 degrees, the speeds on both sides were again consistent and the direction of the box was kept constant.
More complex designs enable higher yields through multiple zones. By adding variable speed drives on both sides, the box can be rotated 90 degrees clockwise and 90 degrees and 180 degrees counterclockwise. This allows the positioning of boxes and tags on the product.
The gentle rotation is increasingly used on thinner products and cartons to protect print designs that are susceptible to damage due to impact rotation.
Sheet feeder
Traditionally, the tie plates and sheets between the product layers are used over several layers of the product. Because the palletizer takes time to form and place several layers of product, then the feeder can pick up and place a new sheet, so the speed requirement for the sheet feeder is also low.
Some new packaging designs require the placement of thin sheets between each layer of the product, giving rise to new concepts in the dispenser. One solution is to use variable frequency drives to drastically reduce the cycle time between the sheet deck and the layer formation area. In some cases, it is necessary to use two sheet feeders to place the sheets in turn.
For display boxes and tying products, faster sheet feeders are required. Both types of packaging often require the placement of a sheet between each layer of product.
Packaging design changes faster and faster. Cost and consumer preferences are the reasons for these changes. This trend stems from the display of boxes, smaller boxes, faster production speeds, thinner packaging and less use of corrugated paper. All of these have an effect on the palletizer. The details of present and future packaging designs play an increasingly important role in the use and selection of palletizers.