Confectionary & Snacks
Requirements
Two case packers in an integrated system fill cartons quickly and flexibly with a wide variety of chocolate specialities
Since it was established in 2003, Turkish chocolate producer Tören has been growing steadily – and catching up with long-established industry giants year after year. Increasing sales led to growing demands being placed on the packaging process. The company’s founder, Mehmet Tören, and his management team set out to find an automated and highly flexible packaging system.
Chocolate treats, wafers, puffed snacks, chocolate bars – Tören promises his customers a “Taste of Happiness”. Eleven years after the company was founded in 2003, the production facilities in Anatolia had to be expanded to satisfy the growing demand. Tören now exports products such as chocolate bars, wafers, coconut bars and chocolate cream treats to 50 countries. Company founder Mehmet Tören was looking for an automated packaging solution to pack the products in flowpacks into cartons quickly, efficiently and with a high degree of flexibility.
The company wanted to pack up to 1,600 products per minute in the future. This was intended to compensate for thedelays caused by the numerous manual steps and the high costs of the previous pre-glued boxes. To satisfy all packaging requirements and customer needs, the processing of at least five different formats was required. The format changeovers had to take place as quickly as possible to avoid long downtimes. Additionally, the packaging machine had to fit into a small space in the production area.
Solution
The Schubert engineers designed a 2-in-1 solution: a complete redesign of the cartons and an integrated line that includes two case packers. To automate the packaging, the previous solution with pre-glued boxes was discarded and new cartons were developed.
To enable automated packaging, new boxes were designed together with the Schubert packaging development team. “Because the case packer works very precisely and requires only small tolerances for the cartons, we can use more tightly dimensioned blanks and therefore reduce the amount of packaging material,” explains Adnan Akman, Sales Account Manager at Schubert. In practice, this means high resource efficiency: “We’re talking about material savings of 15 to 25 per cent on up to six million cartons a year,” Akman highlights.
The 2-in-1 solution for the line design, on the other hand, was primarily intended to save space and offer flexibility: Both case packers operate independently of each other in the packaging machine, therefore ensuring continuous production. A format changeover takes only 10 to 15 minutes, and a single employee can operate the entire system. Tören not only benefits from a fast packaging process with high-level performance, but also protects the environment with the robot-assisted solution. The Schubert solution also sets the course for many other formats and product sizes.
The new packaging machine has been in operation in Gaziantep since November 2019. The plan for continuing the collaboration also demonstrates just how satisfied Mehmet Tören is with the unique solution from Crailsheim: “We have already ordered three more machines from Schubert to package our products,” says Tören.
Two machines in one – when I see the line in action, I know we made the right decision.
Mehmet Tören
Founder and Managing Director Tören, October 2020
Robotics and a Transmodul for maximum efficiency and high-level performance
A robot-assisted packaging process, transport of the products via a Transmodul and precise filling of the boxes – the TLM system with two integrated case packers ensures maximum efficiency at Tören. To satisfy all packaging requirements and customer needs, the system also delivers exceptional flexibility: Both case packers work independently of each other. In the event of a format change, the change parts can also be exchanged by just one system operator in no more than 15 minutes.
The space-saving Schubert solution packs the products in four machine frames, and includes erecting, filling and closing the cartons. Modern robot technology and two Transmodul lines raise efficiency to a high level. The two case packers in the TLM system are supplied independently of each other by two flow-wrapping machines. First, the chocolate products are sorted into two grouping chains in the new line. At the same time, an F2 robot erects the cartons and places them alternately on one of the two separate Transmodul sections. The transport robots developed by Schubert seamlessly link the individual process steps in the packaging machine and ensure a highly efficient process.
Each Transmodul section has a grouping chain and an F2 filling robot. The transport robots bring the erected cartons to their filling station. There, the system decides whether the respective partial line is to be used further. If the corresponding flow-wrapping machine is at a standstill, the cartons are not filled and the Transmodul waits until products are delivered again. “This ensures that there are always boxes ready to be filled on both lines,” explains Sales Account Manager Adnan Akman.
At the end of the process is an F2 closing robot: It closes the boxes alternately from both Transmodul sections. The filled and closed cartons are then discharged. “If the filling robots ever lose a product, a vacuum monitor sounds the alarm,” Akman adds. In this case, the incompletely filled box is sorted out to ensure perfect packaging quality. Due to process integration with the help of the Transmodul and the intelligent machine control, the entire system adjusts fully automatically to the output of the flow-wrapping machines. This ensures an efficient and continuous production process for Tören.
On a single line, Tören packs chocolate treats, wafer snacks and chocolate bars efficiently and precisely into resource-saving cartons
The precision-operated packaging robots enable a tight box design that saves a lot of material.
Two separate Transmodul lines bring the erected cartons to their respective filling stations.
