A customer of ours that produces several items per week on their floors had a problem with product changes taking anywhere from 4 to 8 hours to complete. They were utilizing two packaging lines at 20 packages per minute, and the equipment was a blend of legacy design and old technology. During these tedious product changes, this meant that as many as twenty employees were hanging around and waiting for their components before they could produce.
Our Packaging Specialist determined the best solution for this customer would be to integrate high-speed packaging lines, and strategically redesign not only a single-line layout that supported the ability to package 40 products per minute. Not only did this cut down on the time spent packaging their products, it also drastically reduced the amount of time it took to change over products on the lines, making it an almost seamless process. What once took a full shift to switch from one product to the other took no time at all. No more labor/employees left sitting around for hours. Additionally, they opted for 100% electric packaging machinery. With zero pneumatics, the lower utility costs added to the huge savings from the packaging line changes.
If your products create unique packaging challenges like this, talk to a Packaging Specialist today.