Coperion, Stuttgart, Germany, has supplied six packaging lines plus a common palletising island to the Pontirolo, Italy, plant of SABIC. In the field of plastic compounding – specifically materials handling and extrusion – the two companies have worked in close cooperation for many years. SABIC Italy is a market leader for small lots of plastic compounds with highly customised properties requiring specialised process technologies. Since the beginning of the packaging lines project, the main goals were extreme flexibility and quick cleaning as well as continuous tracking via bar codes linked to the various recipes. The challenge was to install six fully automatic and flexible lines for valve bags while fulfilling these objectives.

 

Coperion applied years of experience in this field during the design process with SABIC, building a dummy prototype in the first phase before proceeding to installation and startup of all six lines. The bags, positioned in a double stack magazine, are placed in filling position by robotised, integrated pick and place arms. The machines are fed easily via bins that are placed above the machines and automatically connected to a gravity feeding funnel. Operation of the bin valve is also completely automatic. The entire process is guided via barcode readers, which identify the product batch, automatically setting all parameters on the relevant bagging machine as well as the labelling. Operators may easily identify what batch is bagged in each line via maxi LCD screens which function as remote displays for the main operator interface. www.coperion.com  

 

 

Coperion packaging machines at Pontirolo with mobile feeding hoppers on top; palletising robots are pictured (below) at the end of the production line