Best-in-class multi-flavour K-Cup® packaging
Cama Group takes packaging flexibility, speed and efficiency to another level at leading US coffee-pod company
Modern consumer society is all about choice… and constantly changing tastes. As a result, food and beverage companies are constantly evolving to find the next great breakthrough product, which will set the pace in the market.
In some industries, however, such as tea and coffee, established flavours still dominate, but consumers still want to be able to mix it up a little, which is why multi-flavour packaging is delivering the choices they need.
To a marketing department, multi flavour is a simple concept to establish, and it’s relatively easy for the blenders, too, as they create multiple batches of individually flavoured capsules. It’s the packaging department that really feels the pressure, as it has to mix and match, precisely, at speed, efficiently and effectively, often into shelf-ready or shelf-optimised packaging.
It is this list of packaging pressures that make many companies turn to Cama Group, with its impressive pedigree in the food and beverage market, backed by a huge variety of successful installations worldwide for some of the biggest household names.
A recent case in point is a multi-machine project Cama Group designed, developed and deployed for a USA-based vertically integrated coffee specialist that supplies both own-brand and private label products.
The machines – two 800-pods-per-minute single flavour lines and one 2,400-pods-per-minute multi flavour line – have taken the companies efficiency, speed and throughput to another level, helping it to cater for the near exponential rise demand in K-Cup® pods in the USA.
According to Davide Di Lorenzo, Sales Engineer Manager at Cama Group: “The primary challenge was laid down by the multi-flavour packaging line. As well as its own blends, varieties and product counts, the customer as a co-packer, also has to cater for the packaging arrays demanded by its private-label customers. This means the packaging technology has to be extremely flexible and adaptable. What is more, between-batch downtime must be kept to an absolute minimum to maintain vital operational equipment effectiveness (OEE).”
In operation, the multi-flavour packaging process starts with four bowl feeders, supplied by a third party, each of which sorts, orients and conveys single-flavour pods. The output from each bowl feeder is diverted into two lanes, each of which feeds and orients cups to one of two banks of delta robots – specially designed by Cama for the precise needs of secondary packaging operations. The first bank receives four lines/flavours of pods face up, the second, four lines/flavours face down (turned by the Cama machine prior to picking) – two either side of the central conveyor.
The first bank picks up eight inverted cups (4 x 2 flavours) from one side and then eight inverted cups (4 x 2 flavours) from the other, and places them in an offset/checkerboard pattern of 4 x 4 pods on a central conveyor. The second bank of robots does exactly the same, but with cups that are face up. This array is then placed onto the conveyor so its nests into the gaps between the inverted cups.
This now-complete layer of 16 cups is picked up by another delta robot using a specially designed vacuum gripper before being placed into a pre-erected carton. This process is then repeated – with the carton layers being alternated so the pods rest top-to-top and bottom-to-bottom – until the batch-/customer-specific product count is reached. This count can be anything between 32 and 120 cups per carton placed in different configurations.
Davide continues: “This packaging line graphically demonstrates Cama’s capabilities to combine complex multi-flavour packaging arrays, with precision, delicate handling, speed and throughput. The company now also has the ability to deliver multiple counts, as the machine can also pack the same cartons with product counts that are not multiples of eight; one example being 50, which could be a 48+2 promotion, or simply the historic product count for one of the private label customers.”
It’s also leveraging the impressive Industry 4.0 capabilities of the Cama solution, which includes augmented and virtual reality (AR & VR) systems for training, maintenance and operation. Downtime is kept to an industry leading minimum between batches, with RFID enabled part changeovers, and OEE is further boosted with a complete condition-monitoring solution, which keeps a very close eye on temperature, vibration and humidity, as well as monitoring electrical and pneumatic supplies and usage.
“We make the machines and deliver the capabilities that our customers need.” Davide concludes, “unlike other suppliers who may try to manipulate and modify their customer’s needs to force fit a machine they can supply from a limited range.
“By having such a wide portfolio of machines, supporting technologies, styles and processes, Cama Group can deliver a tailored, application-specific solution for the most demanding packaging challenges. There simply aren’t any compromises – the customer gets exactly what the customer wants, and with a Cama logo on it, you can be assured that it really is the best in class.”
