Vertical form, fill, and seal machine

Vertical form, fill, and seal machines are ideal for filling bulk materials. Bag size, packaging weight and product properties are decisive for the automation of machine functions and movements. Modular machine concepts are used here. Our MOVI-C^® modular automation system shortens your project time and provides ready-made software modules for many applications in cyclical or continuously running processes.

Modular solutions for intermittent or continuous processes

The vertical form, fill, and seal machine, a typical FFS machine, requires extensive drive and control functions for automation. Here, we offer complete solutions with our MOVI-C^® modular automation system. And all from a single source, including the standardized MOVIKIT^® software modules. In this way, bulk materials such as those produced in large quantities in the food industry are placed in the bag fully automatically and with high throughput, safely and cleanly.

Quote by Günter Wolf, Managing Director of Wolf Verpackungsmaschinen

Complex processes such as these would not have been possible at all without close cooperation with SEW-EURODRIVE. Our machines are now more precise and reliable than ever before. As a result, they achieve a significantly better packaging quality than used to be the case. This is the basis of our success – a success that is clearly connected to our long-standing cooperation with SEW-EURODRIVE.

With our MAXOLUTION^®automation solutions for form, fill, and seal machines, we rely on object-oriented programming and time-saving parameterization. Thanks to the new approach to easy parameterization of pre-tested software, the machine sequence program can be created with a "code generator". This means that modular machines with complex processes can be completed and commissioned in the shortest possible time. What used to take several weeks or months can now be carried out in a few days (time-to-market).

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Let yourself be inspired by topics such as "Food and consumer trends", "Networked production" or "Savings and optimization potential".

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Parameterizing functions with MOVIKIT^®

Print mark control is used in the form, fill, and seal machine to synchronize the material feed, the rotating knives or the flying saw. Here, the fast processing makes it possible to respond in real time and carry out jerk-free motion changes. And all this without any great effort to develop the application software.

Our MOVIKIT^® MultiMotion Camming software modules can be parameterized without taking up a lot of time, and offer correspondingly sophisticated electronic cam functions with position-related engagement and disengagement functions. Automation truly could not be simpler.

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Unrolling film
Transporting film
Dosing
Sealing bar
Sealing tongs and jaws
Print mark control
Sealing
Video - Function flow

Unrolling film

Unwounding of a white sealing film from a roll

Sealing film is unwound from a roll (coil) and fed into the packaging process in a controlled manner. The web tension can be controlled either directly and without sensors via the torque, or via the position of a jockey.

Achieving this takes quick and easy parameterization instead of complex programming: The MOVIKIT^® Winder software module is used for this purpose. Together with the MOVIKIT^® AutomationFramework software module, it is immediately ready for use and very easy to integrate into the sequence program of your form, fill, and seal machine.

Vertical form fill and seal machine with film roll-off

Transporting film

The print mark correction functions developed by us as part of the MOVI-C^® automation platform process the print mark detected by the film drive and control the synchronized movement of the sealing bars. This control ensures perfect positioning of the print image on the bag and demonstrates the precise interplay between our servo drives. Automation of a machine could hardly be quicker or easier.

Dosing

Automation made easy: The MOVIKIT^® MultiMotion Camming software module ensures volumetric filling synchronized in real time – for example, using an auger. This is made possible by the simple parameterization of the filling variant combined with cycle-synchronous control of the responsible actuators.

Sealing bar

Especially with continuously operating machines, the sealing bar must be synchronized with the sealing tongs for continuous film transport. And it must move synchronously with the print image on the film. Only after the desired sealing time has elapsed and the sealing tongs have opened can the bar return to the starting point.

With the MOVIKIT^® MultiMotion Camming software module and the easily parameterizable engagement and disengagement functions, this is a breeze for our solution from the MOVI-C^® modular automation system.

Sealing tongs, sealing jaws

Our MOVIKIT^® MultiMotion software module requires no complicated programming and can be parameterized very easily in a short time. It not only controls the opening and closing of the sealing tongs, but can also control the pressure when sealing the bags. Individual adjustment possibilities during sealing offer the user the greatest flexibility and quality.

Print mark control

The print mark correction functions developed by us as part of the MOVI-C^® modular automation platform process the print mark detected by the film drive and monitor the synchronized movement of the sealing bars. This control ensures perfect positioning of the print image on the bag and demonstrates the precise interplay between our servo drives.

Sealing

The correct temperature is decisive for the sealing quality of the bags. The material and the speed of the form, fill and seal machine have a direct influence on the rather complex control arrangement. With the software modules contained in the MOVIKIT^® AutomationFramework, such control processes with large disturbance variables can be controlled and monitored with high precision. Parameterization without programming ensures fast and easy automation here as well.

Video - Function flow

In this explanatory video, we show the operating principle of an automated vertical form fill and seal machine (VFFS). — Vertical form, fill, and seal machine

The basic structure of a vertical form fill and seal machine simply explained.

Our MOVI-C^® automation platform offers simple automatic program generation with its parameterizable MOVIKIT^® software modules. This achieves time savings of up to 80% in the development and creation of the machine sequence program.