The company said that its modular system, which it showcased at UK trade event Total Processing and Packaging this week, enables it to use a combination of standardized and tailored approaches to create automated packaging lines for specific customer requirements.
It said this approach is based on its portfolio of horizontal and vertical form fill-and-seal and feeding machines, conveyors, robotic product handling systems, and wide network of service engineers.
Roy Fraser, horizontal machine sales manager at Bosch Packaging, told BakeryandSnacks.com that the firm is focused on small wins in the UK such as improving throughput for fragile baked good manufacturers aiming to meet the hike in demand generated by food service and higher in-home consumption trends for single and twin pack packages.
According to Fraser, a recent instalment of an automated line involving a six robotic system for wrapping single product packs in a Scottish biscuit maker was such a business enabler that workers on the packaging section were relocated elsewhere within the plant, and head count was increased as a result of productivity gains.
“The benefits are, of course, application specific but we anticipate output of 80 to 135 packs per minute on medium-speed, fragile baked good lines, and these figures are a result of feedback from current instalments using for example, our top loader for product handling in combination with a horizontal wrapper,” he continued.
Fraser said that Bosch aims to reassure UK bakery manufacturers, perhaps coming to robotics for the first time, that the company has extensive experience of tailoring equipment to meet a manufacturer’s specific needs or reapplying what it has learnt elsewhere.
“In the case of the Scottish biscuit instalment, for example, we were able to show the manufacturer a video of an instalment we completed with a biscuit maker in France that demonstrated the flexibility and speed of application the Scottish company was exactly seeking with a new line,” explained the sales manager.
Essentially, he said, the company aims to ensure that bakery manufacturers can have production flexibility to allow them adapt to changing market conditions and packaging styles.
The company stated that, in terms of implementing Module ++, it considers integration requirements early in the project planning phase, to ensure compatibility of standard machines, and this, it claims, cuts engineering costs to less than three per cent of the total investment as well as shortens lead times.
The modular system, continued Bosch, also enables companies to source equipment and components from one supplier, thus lowering coordination costs and creating project management efficiencies, but the supplier added that its modular approach will not preclude the integration of machines from other suppliers.