Leading global confectionary customer secondary packs 35 tablet and bar variants using a single Cama machine – at speeds of up to 950 ppm into cartons that use 15-20% less material.
According to Statista, the Eastern European confectionary market accounts for some US$49.99 bn in revenue and is expected to grow by 5.13 % CAGR between 2022 and 2027. Coupled to changes in demographics and an increasingly more affluent society, many of the leading confectionary companies as are looking to expand and introduce new products, brands and formats.
Automation – the obvious solution
With the introduction of new brands comes the additional challenges for production and packaging, as new machinery with automation – the only obvious candidate to address an expanding market – has to be deployed across the board to cater for additional capacity requirements. But for this automation investment to be truly effective, it must offer unparalleled total cost of ownership, giving the end user as much agility and flexibility as possible to cater for multiple formats. Gone are the days of one machine for one pack style or brand. These days, modern production and packaging machines have to be incredibly flexible to cater for all possibilities. And it was for this reason, among many others, that a leading global confectionary brand approached Cama Group for new packaging solutions to be installed at its expanding Eastern Europe facilities. According to Alessio Borgo, key account manager ay Cama Group: “The customer was looking to enlarge its local business, through the introduction of new tablets and bars, all of which had to be packaged by the same machine. In short, it needed a new all-in-one solution that offered maximum flexibility and high performance for a wide range of products and configurations.” Cama’s solution comprised a tailored version of its class leading IF296 Monobloc top-loading case packer. Capable of receiving products from the preceding flow wrapper at a rate of 950 ppm, the machine takes flat case blanks from an ergonomically designed magazine and erects them before transferring them to the loading station. Here, multiple 2-axis robots – designed and perfected in-house by Cama – pick the confectionary products from a grouping device and loads them into cartons. Once the cartons are filled, they are closed and sealed using another robot.
Setting packaging industry standards
Part of Cama’s Breakthrough Generation (BTG), the IF Series has design and operational features that are setting the standard in secondary packaging. Their modular, scalable and hygienically designed frameworks house contemporary automation solutions – including advanced rotary and linear servo technology – which can be tightly coupled to in-house-developed robotics, to deliver the all-important flexibility and adaptability required by modern packaging operations. The machine range is also based on a digital platform that supports full Industry 4.0 capabilities, including AR, VR and virtual testing, training and operation.
“This application was particularly challenging,” says Alessio. “In total we have had to cater for 35 different product sizes and formats, the flexibility and agility were right at the top of the customer’s list. We also had to balance the impressive throughput with the agility of confectionary. Packing at speed is relatively easy, but doing it with care and attention, to avoid costly waste and of course brand damage, takes a lot of expertise and knowledge.
“We were fortunate to already have a global relationship with the customer,” he adds, “with multiple installs at various sites around the world, including this one. But previous successes do not guarantee those in the future, so we had to work hard to win the business. The IF296 is not the lowest cost solution on the market, but it does offer the best value when you add up the effects of performance, uptime, product handling and throughput. Indeed, we were initially in second place, to a lower bid, but the technical team at the customer, comprising engineers and operators with experience of our solutions, pushed really hard to get us to the top of the list and we ultimately won the tender.”
Improved carton design
In addition to supplying the secondary packaging technology, Cama’s packaging design team was able to vastly improve the existing carton design. “The original carton was of a two-piece design with an inner tray,” explains Alessio. “We were able to redesign this, replacing it with a single flat-blank based carton, which saves an incredible 15-20 % in packaging materials. With sustainability being a crucial metric, especially for a customer with such a large global footprint, this saving equates to a huge reduction in material use.”
Another major saving was achieved in the changeover routines. “We have worked very hard to develop streamlined changeovers,” Alessio elaborates. “Downtime is unprofitable, and with so many variants changeover-related downtime could potentially become even more so. Using guided systems and RFID identification, our solution offers changeover times as short as just 10 minutes, which is class leading in any industry!”
This is another stunning example of Cama’s ability to offer the ‘whole package’ – from packaging design up to a fully featured and future proof secondary packaging solution. “Sure, we were already part of the installed base at the site,” Alessio states, “but sometimes you have to work twice as hard to win an order; but our solutions certainly seem to be hitting a sweet spot, having received so much support from the customer’s technical team.”
