Cermex honeycombed pack collating system

Cermex has developed a solution for collating products on its shrink wrappers, in order to create honeycombed packs. The company claims that staggered bottle configurations may improve packaging stability. A variety of pack shapes are possible with the system.

Honeycombed packs can be adapted to a range of cylindrical products from 0.25 to 1.5 L where large product collations are required, such as water, soft drinks, juices and some food products. By using a configuration of alternate bottle rows, more points of contact are created, which Cermex claims creates a more stable and rigid pack.

The pack rigidity means corrugated support (such as a tray, u-board or pad), traditionally used in packaging, is not required, says Cermex. Depending on the patterns created, users can create packs with up to 20% more bottles per layer.

Cermex’s solution has been developed to equip both existing and future ranges of shrink-wrappers, accommodating TS as well as VersaFilm. Fitted within the collating flight bar system, between the selecting system and the lapping module, the equipment requires no machine extension, says Cermex, and is composed of mechanical adjustments designed for quick implementation and simple functioning. The mechanical device requires no extra power consumption.

Depending on their requirements, users can continue to handle two types of product collation - traditional packs and honeycombed packs - on the same machine. The staggering system has a capacity of 30 to 100 packs per minute, depending on pack shape, and a format changeover time of around 15 minutes.