MG2 covers the Polish market thanks to the presence of its agent, Tomasz Bednarz of T.B. Pharma, who combines a wide technological know-how with his business skills. Poland is therefore a key market for MG2, which can rely on native speaking Polish technicians, to better support the challenges of the local market.
The technical solution
MG2 carried out a customized solution for the packaging of a liquid supplement contained in glass bottles with metal caps. The set of products must be placed in a display box, which is usually located in the racks of stores. The box is partially open to show a portion of the content, thus enabling the customer to pick up the desired product.
The project features a customized GTF60 tray former, developed to satisfy the most different packaging requirements starting from flat blanks. The system was customized to allow the forming of a display box with a special closing, and its opening by removing a strip from the cardboard. Inside, a separator holds in place and spaced the bottles in the box.
In the product handling area, the customization was particularly concentrated both in the bottles feeding zone, where the products are distributed in multiple rows, and in the reception area of the incoming bottles, to realize the configuration of the product in a precise point of the machine and the subsequent picking by the robot, for placing inside the box.
The machine is also equipped with a vision system, to check the presence and orientation of the product, thus ensuring the correct operation of the system.
Two six-axis robots perform the main handling operation on the line. The first robot guarantees the picking, forming and insertion of the separator inside the formed box. The second robot loads the products collection inside the carton, depending on the size.
The display box is sealed by hot-melt glue. This GTF60 handles two sizes of bottles (25 and 60 ml) and 4 sizes of boxes, as each bottle can be inserted into boxes with different capacity (9 or 20 pieces). As the incoming rate is constant (200 bottles per minute), a precise customization involving the software is required to guarantee the correct management of the working flow, which is affected from both the type of bottle and the number of products to be packed. For this specific issue as well, MG2 developers worked to find dedicated solutions, by strongly cooperating with the suppliers of robots and vision systems, to ensure a full and efficient integration of all components. In fact, the customization and the complexity of operations require a highly dedicated machine software.
Moreover, GTF60 is equipped with both a printer for variable data to be reported on the package (such as batch and expiry date) and a system for verifying a pre-printed 2D code on the cap, as well as checking pre-printed code on the carton.
The keys to success
The handling of display boxes and separator, along with the flexibility in managing different sizes of bottles and containers, are certainly the key features of the case history.
MG2 has managed to effectively run all phases of the separator handling, a very complex process which characterizes the project.
The picking heads used to handle the bottles were designed by MG2 to guarantee the best achievable handling, and each possible configuration has been carefully tested.
A quick size change over allows the customer to change the picking head and quickly restart the production with the new size, thus restoring the full productive efficiency in a short time and reducing the impact of change over procedures in terms of time and required technical skills.
MG2 activities allow to supply the market with a flexible solution, which can be extended to other sizes and types of products, suitable to operate in complex environments, with a high customization level and made even more sophisticated by the integration of external systems: ideal challenges for GTF60, which has always been characterized by extraordinary qualities in terms of flexibility and adaptability to the most different productions.
