Packaging machine in the food industry
Source: CAN Newsletter March 2007
How do the biscuits get into the package and how does the coffee get into the coffee pads? This sounds like a simple question from a popular scientific telecast, it makes however the highest demands to industrial systems and their controllers. If, as it is common in many applications, more than 1 000 products are to be packaged within a single minute, this requires a smooth interaction of control and actuators. If several passes are involved, all actuators must function with the utmost synchronous precision. The more components needed for the process can be purchased from a single supplier and the less interfaces are present, the simpler the control of the entire process.
The example of a packaging system from a machine manufacturer in the Schwäbisch-Hall region shows the demands that such a filling system makes to automation technology. The machine packages dry products, from powders to lumps in ten parallel tracks. It can handle up to 1 500 packages per minute, i.e. 25 packages per second. Individual tracks can be switched off according to requirements. The machine is flexible; new product developments can be easily implemented.
