Keeping your manufacturing business competitive, efficient, eco-friendly, and on budget requires adopting the right technology to streamline and automate tasks. One way to minimize the time spent in the packaging process while ensuring the highest level of quality and consistency is by using a flow wrapper for high-volume production.
Flow wrappers are horizontal form-fill-seal machines that promote notable benefits in the production process, including exceptional consistency, speed, and reliability. This technology can integrate seamlessly into your production line and automate packaging for a range of product types.
Traditional manual methods cannot compete with modern demands. Read on to learn how businesses are leveraging horizontal flow-wrapping systems to enhance manufacturing.
What Are Flow Wrappers?
Flow wrappers wrap products in a continuous flow. The process starts with placing a product on the system’s conveyor, whether through manual or automatic means. The system moves the product through the conveyor and creates a tube of wrapping around it, forming a longitudinal seal. Then, the machine cuts the packaging while avoiding material waste.
The highest-performing flow wrappers can move at impressive speeds, allowing them to wrap up to 300 packages per minute. This significantly streamlines your assembly process and boosts production.
Key components of these systems include:
- Film-feeding system: This consists of the conveyor belt that delivers the products to the wrapper.
- Forming shoulder: This device shapes the film around the product, creating a tube with an overlapping seam.
- Sealing mechanisms: These devices seal the film along the product lengthwise.
- Cutting systems: The cutting head slices and seals the film across the product.
- Control interfaces: These computerized systems include custom controls that allow you to tailor their performance to your operations.
How Flow Wrappers Are Used in High-Speed Production
The many benefits of flow wrappers for high-volume production make them a popular choice among manufacturers across industries. This is how horizontal flow wrappers are used in production.
Speed Benefits of Flow Wrappers
These continuous motion wrappers allow for ongoing, streamlined, high-speed wrapping. Your company minimizes downtime in the packaging process, allowing for 24/7 production potential. This is a dramatic increase over manual packaging capabilities.
Quality/Consistency Features
Along with speeding up your production line, these automatic packaging machines ensure the highest level of quality and consistency. Their mechanisms produce uniform packages with identical seal quality, a characteristic that simply isn’t possible with manual processes. This reduces waste from defective packaging and promotes more reliable product protection.
Efficiency Improvements for Manufacturers
Using a flow wrapper for high-volume production also makes your business more efficient. It allows you to precisely predict the amount of material you will need to package each product and avoid wasting excess material.
These machines reduce labor costs, as you won’t need to pay workers to package goods manually. They integrate seamlessly with inspection systems for maximal efficiency.
Operational Advantages of Flow Wrappers
Flow wrappers promote several operational advantages as well, such as:
- Quick changeovers between different types of products
- Servo-driven precision through the use of highly accurate and repeatable movements
- Automated quality control that makes it easier to meet compliance standards
- Real-time monitoring capabilities that enable you to instantly pinpoint any potential malfunctions and correct them before the product makes it off the assembly line
These benefits can improve your production process overall.
Where Flow Wrappers Are Typically Used
Flow wrappers offer the best performance for certain types of products and industries:
- Food industry: They can package foods like baked goods, snacks, candies, and frozen foods.
- Pharmaceutical/medical industry: They may be suitable for packaging certain types of medical supplies.
- Consumer goods: Companies that produce toys, toiletries, hardware, and other consumer goods can also leverage these systems.
Meanwhile, liquid products, those that are irregularly shaped, or packaging materials that require folding, aren’t compatible with flow wrappers. Your business should explore the difference between a vertical vs. horizontal form-fill system to determine the right model for your product type.
Industrial flow wrap systems offer a few key advantages across industries:
- Flexibility for different product sizes: One machine can accommodate several different sizes of products.
- Quick changeovers between products: You can quickly switch between product types while minimizing downtime in the packaging process.
- High equipment utilization: Because of the flexibility and versatility offered by these machines, you can maximize their operational time and make effective use of your investment.
Materials Used in Sealing With Flow Wrappers
Flow wrappers for high-volume production are compatible with several types of packaging materials.
- Heat sealing: Both polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) films feature the right characteristics for heat sealing. These films are best for products that require air-tight seals, such as food products. The machine uses heat and pressure to fuse the film layers.
- Cold sealing: Cold sealing processes generally work best with pressure-sensitive adhesives. Cold sealing is ideal for heat-sensitive items like chocolates and candy bars. The adhesives bond when pressure is applied to the packaging, creating a tight seal.
- Sustainable options: Companies looking to boost their environmental sustainability can consider recyclable mono-material films, paper-based films, and biodegradable materials. High-performance flow wrappers are compatible with all of these material types.
Determining whether you want to use heat or cold sealing for your products is a first step in pinpointing the right materials.
Factors To Consider When Choosing Sealing Materials
Choosing the best material for your product type and manufacturing goals is essential if you want to maximize the benefits of a flow wrapper for high-volume production while integrating it flawlessly into your manufacturing process. Consider these factors as you choose the right manufacturing materials:
- Product characteristics: Would your product be compatible with a heat-sealing product, or would heat affect its characteristics? Does the product require an airtight seal, which can be produced through heat sealing, or is a normal seal acceptable? Consider the product’s characteristics and what type of material would best suit it.
- Production requirements: Think about your ideal packaging process and consider how your flow wrapper can best suit your company’s goals. For example, if your business wants to achieve the fastest packaging possible, cold sealing is likely a better choice than heat sealing, meaning you would want to use pressure-sensitive adhesives rather than polyethylene. Cold sealing can be up to 10 times faster than heat sealing because the machine does not need to wait for the packaging to heat up.
- Economic considerations: Different packaging materials come at different price points. Consider your manufacturing budget and whether packaging could be a suitable area to reduce costs.
- Sustainability goals: Sustainable materials like paper-based films tend to be pricier than traditional materials, but they could better meet your company’s environmental goals.
TDI Packsys: Your Source for High-Volume Packaging Automation Solutions
Leveraging a flow wrapper for high-volume production can save your business time and money while boosting quality and consistency. If you’re looking for high-performance packaging automation systems, turn to TDI Packsys.
We offer a wide range of packaging solutions, including horizontal flow-wrapping systems, vertical form, fill, and seal systems, robotic packaging systems, and more. We also provide industry-leading inspection systems to promote purity, safety, and compliance in your products.
Contact TDI Packsys today at 877-834-6750 to learn more about how our packaging automation technology can help streamline your operations and request a quote from our team.
