A large consumer goods manufacturer needs to package a very high quality product that is produced on eight individual machines. The product needs to be inspected for quality after being manufactured, tracked to ensure coding and tracking throughout the system to the corrugated case, and carried overhead to the packaging system to ensure the cell format of the current factory layout. The product is sold in groups of eight per corrugated case, so buffering is needed to group package similar codes in one case. Two languages must be produced from a single packaging line at the same time during the production run. Finally it must be able to produce a four pack and an eight pack cased product at the same time.
We provided a system that loaded the product into overhead conveyors with bolt on flights which carried the product from the production cell to the packaging machine. The product is tracked from each cell location (8 cells) to the cartoner with RFID tags on each carrier. The product is picked from one of two magazines, depending on language, and placed into the cartoner indexer. The product is transferred into the carton from the overhead carrier. The product literature is picked from one of two magazines, depending on language, and placed onto the product in the carton. The carton is closed and coded with the cell number, lot code, date code, operator code to ensure tracking. The carton is then buffered until a four count case or an eight count case is needed. When needed the cartons are then released to the proper case packer. The case packer loads the case and codes the case with the inner contents from one of each eight cells. The corrugated case is then labeled with one of two labels, depending on language, with a print and apply label. The cases exit onto a cross roller for accumulation before palletizing
Benefits of the Fargo System:
- The customer was able to run the full line at our facility to ensure runtime and product quality prior to shipment into the manufacturing plant.
- The full system ran at or above 98% runtime prior to shipment.
- A first line was purchased and then a second about two years later.
- The design met the needs of the customer and is still in production today on a 24/7 basis.