Speed Matters
Your packaging equipment has been working fine, the filling machine fills, the capping machine caps, and the labeling machine labels, but you want more units per hour. A number of subtle adjustments can be made to each machine to improve the through put of the production line.
Operation
The line operators must keep all of the feed hoppers supplying the line full. It does not matter how fast the filler can go if a filling machine is waiting for empty bottles or has to stop while the product supply is replenished.
Filling Machines
The filling process can be broken down into a series of operations. How fast the conveyor moves containers under the filling heads and then on to the capping machine sets the upper speed boundary. The timing settings of the filling machine must be optimized each time you change the conveyor speed. Check the delay time between when the containers stop under the nozzles and product starts flowing. The time it takes to fill the container is usually the pacing speed constraint.
Check the delay between when product stops flowing and the bottles are released to move on down the conveyer. If your machine is using pin indexing use the entry and exit gate timing to minimize the gap between empty and full containers leaving the fill stations.
Finding the right combination of conveyer speed and timing adjustments requires patience and persistence. Product viscosity on one end and foaming behavior on the other can all work against ultimate filling speed.
Capping Machines
If the capping machine doesn’t keep up with the filling machine, a backup will occur that will cause the filler to pause. There is a mechanism to put a small space between containers entering the capper. As long as the capper can get a cap on every container, coming into the capping machine life will be good and there should be no problem keeping up with the filler feeding it.
Labeling Machines
Pressure-sensitive labelers can keep up with most in line filling machines. Sleeve applicator machines can be fast enough to keep up with rotary filling machines.
The product viscosity, foaminess and response to pressure determine what filling technology is best for getting your product into a container in the minimum amount of time. Container shape and filling aperture can help make the filling process easier. Involving a packaging engineer in the earliest stages of product delivery design can save packaging time and money.
- Post Date: 27 Feb, 2017
WestPack 2017
Thank you for visiting Accutek’s exhibit at WestPack in Anaheim Convention. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you did not grab a catalog at the show, please view our PDF catalog here on the website.
- Post Date: 09 Feb, 2017
Accutek Won an Award
Accutek Won 2016 California Employer Advisory Council
VETERANS EMPLOYER OF THE YEAR
- Post Date: 09 Feb, 2017
How to Package Your Product
The process of getting your product into a suitable container and on the shelf in an attractive container is complex. Accutek Packaging Companies normally enters the process after you have sample containers and their closure in hand. We offer a wide selection of powder filling or liquid filling machines. There are four filling technologies. One of these techniques will work for liquids that can be anything from thin petrochemicals to peanut butter.
– Timed flow fillers that deliver product for a digitally controlled time interval.
– Piston fillers deliver a measured volume of product.
– Overflow fillers fill the container to a specific level.
– Positive displacement fillers measure product as a function of pump rotations.
A closure or cap must be placed and secured on the container, once the product is in the bottle. Capping machines range from single cap hand operated cap tighteners to rotary chuck cappers.
Accutek also has a complete range of labeling machines, for pressure sensitive, hot glue and sleeving machines with heat tunnels that shrink labeling sleeves around the containers.
The filling machine that Accutek and you select depends on your product characteristics and the container you want to use. Other factors that enter into this decision are budget, production speed and level of operator training needed.
A simple liquid filling application might be filling essentials oils into small 30 milliliter bottles. A good choice for this application would be an Accutek Mini-Pinch filler that fills six bottles at a time. The caps can be hand placed and tightened with a hand held chuck capper. The pressure sensitive labels would be applied by hand in this entry level scenario.
This same company a year or two later could have a fully automated line. The empty bottles get loaded into a hopper. The caps are loaded into another hopper. The product supply tank is filled and the bottle labels are set up in a labeling machine. The operator starts the machinery and then watches the filled, capped, and labeled bottles collect on the accumulating turn table at the end of the line.
Accutek works with you to meet your packaging needs, no matter what your budgetary constraints might be. We have simple machines that are faster than filling bottles one at a time by hand. We also have automated packaging lines with multi-head rotary fillers and a selection of compatible capping and labeling machines.
- Post Date: 02 Feb, 2017
Sustainability in Manufacturing
Accutek Packaging Equipment manufactures in four facilities around the country and in 2014 and 2015 we installed solar panels with micro inverters with new Cool White reflective roofing material at the California locations. The decision to install Solar was made in 2012 and was installed over a two year period and several adjustments had to be made after install to optimize the system to cancel out demand charges. We installed 386 panels producing 300 watts each with micro inverters at one location and 245 panels at another together they produce over 173,525 KWH of power.
Also LED Lighting project was decided on in 2012 but wasn’t completed all locations until 2016. The LED lighting replaced t8 florescent lamps and Sodium halide lighting and was the least expensive reduction in power consumption and greatest impact for ROI and for employees’ who love the new lighting and all four of our facilities have LED lighting throughout.
In addition since 1996 we have been working every year to reduce to power consumption of every machine we sell to our customers so they can be efficient as possible. We have always been an environmentally friendly and high-tech company being first to jump on flat panel LCD monitors. We have had a recycling program since our inception in 1989 and pretty much everything from office paper to waste oil as well.
- Post Date: 23 Jan, 2017
WestPack 2017
February 7-9, 2017
Anaheim Convention Center
Anaheim, CA
Are you keeping up with the packaging industry? Accutek is excited to announce their presence at the WestPack Trade Show in Anaheim, CA. Please come and visit us at booth #4942. This would be a great chance to meet our team in-person, ask all your technical questions, and get any additional information you would like in regards to our packaging equipment!
- Post Date: 02 Jan, 2017
Thank you for visiting us at PACK EXPO International 2016
Thank you to everyone who came by our booth at the PACK EXPO International 2016 Tradeshow. We hope that you enjoyed Chicago and had a good look at our Packaging Equipment. We had a great time, and it was great to see everyone again and to make new contacts. If you did not grab a catalog at the show, please view our pdf catalog here on the website.
We hope to see you again!
- Post Date: 21 Dec, 2016
Christmas and New Year 2017
Dear Customers, our company will be closed December 26th for the celebration of Christmas.
- Post Date: 20 Dec, 2016
Thanksgiving 2016
Accutek Packaging Equipment Companies will be closed on Thursday November 24th & Friday November 25th for Thanksgiving. We will re-open on Monday, November 28th, at normal business hours.
- Post Date: 16 Nov, 2016