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How Product Shape Affects Packaging Machine Design
Thomas Bornemann, Director Sales & Marketing, and Dennis Feldbusch, Area Sales Manager, of Hastamat explain that product shape and orientation determine machine design. A Hastamat machine designed for stick products can also run bulk products, but a bulk machine cannot handle stick-shaped products. Longer sticks need a bigger weigher, and Hastamat tests original product and packaging material before choosing a design.
Key takeaways
- Thomas Bornemann says a machine designed to keep stick products oriented can also run bulk products, but a machine bought for bulk products cannot be used for stick-shaped products.
- Dennis Feldbusch explains that longer sticks need a bigger weigher, with space on top to keep the product oriented from the beginning.
- Thomas Bornemann says Hastamat always asks customers for original product and packaging material to check up front what has to change.
Common questions
- Can one multihead weigher handle both stick products and bulk products?
- According to Thomas Bornemann of Hastamat, a machine designed for stick products keeps the products oriented but can also run bulk products on the same system. The reverse does not work: a machine bought for bulk products cannot be used for stick-shaped products, so Hastamat needs to know everything before choosing the machine model. He adds that many production lines make different products, such as stick products and pretzels, and running stick and bulk products on the same machine is exactly what Hastamat can do.
- Do longer stick products need a different weigher?
- Dennis Feldbusch of Hastamat says longer sticks require a bigger weigher, because the product must be distributed the right way and needs space on top to keep its orientation from the beginning. Not every stick product behaves the same, so Hastamat reviews the product before deciding on a design.
- Does Hastamat test customer products before designing a machine?
- Yes. Thomas Bornemann of Hastamat says they do this in every case, always asking the customer for original product and packaging material to check up front what has to change and whether the existing packaging material can be kept.
Transcript
Tom Rougeux, President, Piepenbrock Packaging
So guys, tell us how does, how product shape, fragility, and orientation change the kind of machine that we use? How does stick, pretzel change the machine from rice that you want to bag?
Thomas Bornemann, Director Sales & Marketing, Hastamat
That's a big difference for sure.
Tom Rougeux
So what are the two differences?
Thomas Bornemann
I mean, we have special designs for different products of the machines. But the special things of our machines is we can also design the machine, let's say, to be flexible for different products. But some products require a special design, some products not.
For example, we can, if you go for stick products, we have a special design machine which keep the products orientated, but we can also run the bulk products on the same system. Yes, on the other way around, if you buy a machine for bulk products, I cannot buy, I cannot use it for stick shape products.
Tom Rougeux
Okay.
Thomas Bornemann
So we have to know everything before we design the type of model of machine.
Tom Rougeux
I see. So is there a family of goods that you can handle within one particular machine? So is it sticks and they can be longer or shorter?
Sticks, can they all go out of the same machine if they're, say, pretzels that are different lengths or celery that's a different length?
Dennis Feldbusch, Area Sales Manager, Hastamat
We have different styles of multihead weighers, for example. Even when we're talking about the sticks weigher, like Thomas mentioned, there are also some differences between. So like you mentioned, longer sticks, we will, or we have to use a bigger weigher, because we have to distribute the product in the right way.
We want to keep the orientation of the product from the beginning. So we need, let's say, space on top to orientate the product. So there are some small changes.
At the end you can say a stick product is not always a stick product. So we have to look at the product before, because a pretzel stick is not like a pretzel stick. So there are really some changes, and we will have a look on it before, and out of our experience we will decide which design we will use.
Tom Rougeux
Do you do any testing beforehand, or how does that work?
Thomas Bornemann
I mean, this is what we are doing in every case. So we are asking customer always for original product and also packaging material to check upfront what we'd have to change or if you can keep the existing material and so on. And just to add something to the answer, to Dennis' answer, is many production lines are able to produce different products.
For example, the machine for stick products can also produce pretzels. So it means they need a combination of stick products and bulk products at the same machine, and that's exactly what we can do.
