25.10.2024 • Bruchsal, Nuremberg, BrauBeviale 2024: With its new PROPAC banding machine, project group makes it possible for customers to package bottles in ways that suit them, using much less material and energy. project uses the MOVI C® modular automation system from SEW EURODRIVE to coordinate the drive axes.
Shrink-wrap packaging is popular as secondary packaging for bottles and cans because individual bottles can be bound together and carried easily. However, this type of packaging uses relatively large amounts of plastic and energy. Since sustainability is becoming increasingly important for drinks producers, too, the search is on to find more sustainable alternatives to shrink-wrapping.
Based in Kranenburg near Kleve, in the Lower Rhine area of Germany, project group specializes in automation projects. Its activities include developing, constructing, and marketing banding machines. These offer a more sustainable way of packaging drinks and other foodstuffs because they replace shrink film with banderoles that do not necessarily have to be plastic, but rather are increasingly made from paper-based material. Less material is used compared to shrink-wrapping, and the amount of energy required for the sales packaging is also significantly lower.
In the complex PROPAC machine, individual bottles are bound together into a tight, practical packaging unit using a banderole. An additional handle applicator makes it possible to add a carry handle to the package of two, four, or six bottles. The package can then be transported conveniently.
The new system was created using the MOVI‑C® modular automation system from SEW‑EURODRIVE. Consequently, the hardware required for the PROPAC drive concept is 15 to 20 percent more cost-effective than the components used before, because as a multi-axis system, MOVI‑C® only needs one power supply for up to 32 axes. This also means there is only one braking resistor, one contactor, or one motor circuit breaker, rather than needing separate components for each axis (as is the case with conventional systems).
Even more important were the functional advantages the system offers. Several gantry robots are at work within the banding machine, and these must run synchronously with each other. They are connected to a master and are synchronized in the drive system via an electronic cam function. However, the software experts at project did not need to program this function themselves, but instead were able to use preconfigured MOVIKIT® software modules that are part of the MOVI‑C® modular automation system.