Semi-Automatic Packaging Machinery for Seasonal Products
As the year comes to an end, the holidays are lining up as we've moved past Halloween toward Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year. The end of the year holiday season often brings with it seasonal packaging or special products. Whether a limited pumpkin spice flavor or a special holiday bottle or other package, the new or extra production runs can lead to overtime or a slowdown of regular packaging. For some packagers, semi-automatic packaging machinery can provide a solution for special runs during the holiday season or any other time of the year.
Where production of special run products or packages is far less than normal production runs, changing over for short runs can cause excessive downtime or simply lost production time. Semi-automatic machinery can allow packagers to use one or a few operators to produce holiday products without stopping production of typical, year-round products.
From rinsing machines to liquid fillers, capping equipment and more, semi-automatic machines can be manufactured as simple tabletop equipment taking up little space to full-frame machinery that may be upgraded to automatic production at a later time. Each semi-automatic machine will require an operator to place bottles and activate the packaging process. For example, a semi-automatic, four-head filling machine will require an operator to place four bottles under the fill heads before using a finger or foot switch to activate the filling process. Once bottles are filled, the operator will remove the completed bottles from the fill area and repeat the process until the production demand has been met. A similar process would be used for rinsing or capping bottles as well.
Semi-automatic packaging systems can be set up to allow one operator to rinse, fill, cap and otherwise prepare products, or one operator can be used for each machine. The actual setup of the system will depend on a number of factors, including the speed necessary to meet demand. While this equipment can only move as fast as the operators, semi-automatic machines typically add speed over hand packaging while also offering consistent and reliable packaging that will not vary throughout the production day.
While these machines offer a daily solution for smaller local or regional packagers, they can also offer a solution for medium to large packaging facilities that often have shorter, special run products or packages. To learn more about the semi-automatic equipment offered by Liquid Packaging Solutions, browse the machine categories on the LPS website, or give LPS a call to speak with a Packaging Specialist today.