A new system from France-based Cermex allows its shrink-wrappers to collate products in a honeycomb-shaped pack, adaptable to all types of cylindrical products from 0.25-litre to 1.5-litre.
By using a configuration of alternate bottle rows, more points of contact are created, making the honeycombed pack more stable and rigid, even where large product collations are required, such as for water, soft drinks and juices or certain food products.
The resulting pack rigidity removes the necessity for the corrugated support (tray, u-board or pad) required in traditional packs, which can reduce costs by between 5 and 6 Euro cents per pack.
A corrugated support module is therefore no longer necessary, while palletisation can be improved with up to 20% more bottles per layer, depending on the patterns.
Recent installations for some leading international bottlers have confirmed the system’s potential, says the company - part of the Sidel Group, itself one of the three industry divisions of Tetra Laval.
In the distribution chain, advantages include a reduction in the risk of pack deterioration during manual or automated handling, and great opportunities in terms of design and promotional marketing thanks to the multitude of pack shapes possible, as well as a reduction in packaging waste.
Cermex says it has developed: “A patented solution to equip both existing and future ranges of shrink-wrappers, TS as well as VersaFilm, for the two most attractive types of honeycombed packs in terms of cost and stability.”
The equipment requires no machine extension and is composed of mechanical adjustments designed to ensure quick implementation and simplified functioning.
Depending on the requirements of their distribution network, customers can continue to handle two types of product collation, traditional packs and honeycombed packs, on the same machine.
The staggering system can be dismantled and guarantees total machine flexibility while maintaining speed (30 to 100 packs/min, depending on the honeycombed pack shape) and a format changeover time of around 15 minutes.
Cermex honeycombed packs
