OCME Increases the Range of Altair Wrap-Around Packers Attaining up to 100 Cartons per Minute!

One of the most critical stages in terms of stability of the containers is where the group of bottles and the blank couple. In order to avoid shock and breaks, a retractable plane level helps blank and bottles to combine at the same speed.

01/12/2007 OCME, among the first companies in Europe to introduce the wrap-around system suitable to pack products coming from the large consumption industry, presents today a new series of very high speed wrap-around packers. The first model was installed in China at China Resources Breweries.

Established in 1994, CR Breweries is a joint venture between CR Enterprise and SABMiller, the second largest brewing group in the world. It is one of the Chinese Mainland's leading brewing companies, with 35 breweries and an annual production capacity of 4.12 million kiloliters (http://www.snowbeer.com.cn)

For the Shenyang plant they ordered at Ocme an Altair N70 wrap-around packer able to pack different sizes of glass bottles at maximum speed of 70 cartons/minute.

In order to obtain a speed of more than 70 cartons/minute (the top model can make 100/minute!!), the Altair project was revised in a few parts in order to guarantee reliability and safety even in the most delicate passages.

A first change was made by doubling the blank’s introduction unit, so that to decrease the blanks introduction’s relative speeds. The double introduction unit allows, in case of stop in emergency, to end the cycle in 2-3 steps in order to avoid falls of bottles and wrong introductions of blanks.

One of the most critical stages in terms of stability of the containers is where the group of bottles and the blank couple. In order to avoid shock and breaks, a retractable plane level helps blank and bottles to combine at the same speed.

The blanks selection is obtained thanks to a first electronic adjustable fingers selection group followed by a second group of electronic adjustable fingers which allows to join the wrap-around packing’s maximum speed in a gradual way (in 2 passages) with the aim of avoiding falls of unstable containers. The blanks standard store capacity, placed in an easily accessible place for the operator, can be further increased and automated through adding a feeding robot which draws the blanks piles directly from the pallet.

The series of Altair N 70-100 wrap-around packers includes models from 70, 80, 90 and 100 cartons/minute and is characterised by a large use of brushless motorizations on all the machine’s sets, allowing in this way to considerably simplify the format change.

The final carton’s quality is optimum, thanks to the flaps lockup through active devices, to the gluing system which is adjustable according to carton’s type and machine’s speed and thanks to the positive pressing system through sprung sliding blocks which press directly on the glue length, also when the cartons heights change.