Case Packer for Spouted Stand-Up Pouches | Complete Line

Calmus Machinery just built a from-unscrambling-to-palletizing complete case packing line for spouted stand-up pouches (doypacks), tailored for a large baby food manufacturer abroad. The packing line consists of two pouch unscramblers, a wrap-around case packer with two pouch collators, a palletizer, and connecting conveyors. The case packing speed is 15 cartons per minute, with each carton holding 10 or 12 pouches in a single row. It receives disordered pouches from upstream, unscrambles them into two separate piles with consistent face-up and head orientation, collates and packs the pouches into cartons, and finally palletizes the cartons.

Pouch Unscrambler

This automatic pouch unscrambler is designed for organizing disordered spouted stand-up pouches to meet the feeding requirements of the collator for doypack case packing. It collects spouted pouches from the upstream packaging line, arranges them into a single file, spaces out consecutive pouches, orients all pouch heads consistently with the help of a vision system, turns them face-up, and flattens the pouches. This flattening step prevents folded pouches from causing jams during case packing.

Wrap-Around Case Packer

A wrap-around case packer is a machine that forms a corrugated cardboard case directly around a group of products, rather than inserting products into a pre-formed box. For automation, it normally folds pre-creased cardboards into a U-shape first, then loads the grouped products, and finally folds and seals the sides and tops with hot-melt adhesive. This results in a compact, secure case with superior structural strength and lower material costs compared to pre-formed cartons.

This wrap-around case packer is a form-load-seal 3-in-1 monoblock cartoning machine, which integrates case forming, pouch loading, and case sealing into a single compact and efficient unit. It picks one-piece pre-creased cardboards from the magazine, folds them into a U-shape, and conveys the folded blanks to the pouch loading station. The case packer is combined with two pouch collators. The collators collect pouches into two separate rows, push them alternately into the central pick-up station, where a pick-and-place unit picks the pouches by their spouts and loads them into the formed cartons. Finally, the loaded cartons are conveyed to the next stations to be closed at the top and sealed at the minor flaps with hot melt adhesive.

Palletizer

We originally planned to use our rotating joint palletizer BJP32 for this project, but we found that the cobot palletizer CP30 offers greater flexibility for different palletizing patterns, so we switched to the CP30.

Although the maximum payload of the CP30 is only 30 kg, it is sufficient for this stand-up pouch case packing project, as each box weighs less than 3 kg. The overall efficiency meets the target speed. More importantly, the cobot palletizer can handle all palletizing patterns with just one gripper.

Comprehensive Case Packing Solutions for Stand-Up Pouches

Tear-off display boxes are becoming more and more popular for stand-up pouches (doypacks). This packaging format requires pouches to be packed standing up in a box. The box has a die-cut line around its body, which enables it to be separated into upper and lower parts. Discard the upper part and keep the lower part together with the pouches as a display. The box can be RSC, lock-bottom or wrap-around type. Calmus Machinery is one of the few manufacturers in China that can provide comprehensive case packing solutions for stand-up pouches.

RSC Boxes

RSC boxes are an efficient packaging option for stand-up pouches because they can contain multiple rows of pouches. It is more organized and safer to pack pouches standing up with cardboard dividers between rows. We have both split and monoblock case packers as options.

Lock-Bottom Boxes

Currently, the two typical types of lock-bottom boxes are auto-lock and snap-lock. Many manufacturers start with auto-lock bottom boxes for their pouch packaging because they are easily formed manually. To upgrade to automation, we suggest switching to wrap-around boxes because they are much stronger and can protect your pouch products better. However, we can provide case packers that handle both auto-lock and snap-lock bottom boxes if you do not want to change your existing boxes.

Wrap-Around Boxes

Currently more and more companies choose or switch to using wrap-around boxes to pack their pouch products due to their superior structural strength and lower material costs. Besides, wrap-around case packers are optimal for high speed. Our wrap-around case packer can handle up to 15 boxes per minute. The machine can pack infeed pouches from two standard Gualapack filling machines by combining two of our pouch collating lines, provided that one box contains 12 or more pouches.

Pouch Collator

Pouch collating is necessary before case packing. A collator organizes pouches into layers one at a time, stacks them with interlayer partition boards if more than one row in a case is required, and delivers them to the loading funnel, where the pouches are inserted into the formed case. Collators are a specialty product of Calmus Machinery. They are widely used with our packaging machines for instant ramen packets, sanitary pads, and diapers.

Pouch Unscrambler

Before entering the collating stage, all stand-up pouches must be on the conveyor one after another, with their heads all facing the same direction. But what if they come out of the upstream equipment in a disorganized manner? Calmus Machinery provides pouch unscramblers (also called pouch sorters by some) that can unscramble disorganized pouches and convey them one after another. Through visual recognition and rotation, they can then orient all stand-up pouches with their heads facing the same direction, and even flip them to ensure the same side of all pouches faces up.