A number of the Australian representatives PKN interviewed were present on the stands of their global partners, reconnecting in person to strengthen business ties.
We caught up with Matthews Australasia CEO Mark Dingley on the Evolabel stand.
“As an expo of global technology, Interpack has always held excellent value for Matthews,” Dingley said. “Reflecting on this year, it was good to catch up with Evolabel AB, whom we first came across at Interpack back in 2014.
“We thought then that this Swedish developer of innovative and intuitive labellers was a game changer in the label printer application space; its software allows a group of printers to communicate and work together for increased capacity and/or redundancy and the technology allows manufacturers to optimise production with the least possible interference to their current solution.”
At the time, Dingley relates, Matthews was transitioning from an older technology. The process was expected to take a couple of years, but Dingley says thanks to “the quality of Evolabel, and the technology itself”, the transition took less than six months.
“There’s been good growth in that logistics labels segment too. One reason is that through Covid there were virtually no delays within Evolabel’s supply because they manage everything in-house and have full control of their supply and manufacturing process, which are all based in Sweden.”
Matthews was an early adopter of Evolabel technology – it was the first in the southern hemisphere.
“It’s a relationship we value, and we’ll continue to work closely with them to offer Australian manufacturers top technologies,” Dingley said.
Sweet solution
On the CAMA stand, Paul Meischke and Tony DiNallo from JL Lennard were on hand with CAMA CEO Alessandro Rocca. We were shown the workings of Cama’s latest turnkey picking line for naked chocolate, which can pick 400 pieces of chocolate per minute.
In operation, robots equipped with Gimatic grippers pick chocolates from feed rows on a conveyor and then gently place them into PET trays that arrive in parallel from a de-nester. The chocolates’ quality, shape and position on the belt are determined using a special 3D laser scanner supplied by Univision. Once each tray is full, they are loaded singly or in pairs (with a cushion sheet) into carton trays, before a lid is formed and tucked into the tray, the finished product being a completed box containing anything from four to 32 chocolates. The boxes are then fed through an x-ray machine and check weigher before heading to a case packer at the end of the line.
The line is also capable of bulk packaging, which is used as a fall back in case of any line issues. In this instance, carton sheets can be fed through the line and the delta robots can directly load chocolates into the carton, which are then passed onto a manual loading section requested by the customer. This approach prevents any significant downtime.
“The confectionery industry demands optimum efficiency,” Rocca explained. “You can’t just stop a 1500 ppm line. Our motto is: ‘never stop the line unnecessarily and be as efficient as possible when it is running’.”
Technology advances
For the first time in years, Nupac had the chance to head to Europe with its sales team and reconnect with its principals at Interpack.
As agent for some of the leading processing and packaging machinery manufacturers, such as Syntegon, SN Maschinebau, Rotzinger, Sapal and more, Nupac was on deck to discuss and showcase some of the biggest innovations in the market to a range of Australian and New Zealand manufacturers who travelled to the exhibition.
Nupac also gained acknowledgement from Syntegon as one of its top five agents globally.
Peter Pontikis, Nupac MD, said: “Building the knowledge and relationships to continue providing the top equipment in the industry, Nupac is excited to present these game changing solutions to the Australian market, which are bound to help local food and pharmaceutical manufacturers improve their efficiencies, quality and sustainable packaging profoundly in the coming years.”
Interpack 2023 was the first time the new ‘Syntegon’ name was on display since the rebrand from Bosch Packaging Technologies in 2020. Syntegon presented a range of innovations, including the SVX VFFS Series, a “landmark innovation” in high-speed vertical bagging, providing flexibility, reduced footprint, ultimate control and high output.
Visitors to the Syntegon stand were able to witness the striking new design and effectiveness of the SVX Agile as a stand-alone machine producing pillow bags, as well as the SVX Duplex in a complete confectionery line producing jellies.
Also on the Syntegon stand, the Kliklok division – represented in Australia by PerForm Packaging Solutions, whose MD Chris Baudinette was on the stand – launched upgraded functionalities for its popular basic endload cartoner (BEC), targeting mid-sized companies looking to automate their cartoning processes.
“The latest Kliklok BEC offers the benefits of our proven machine series combined with the technological advancements to meet the requirements of automated production processes,” said James Hoare area sales manager at Syntegon. “We put special emphasis on process stability, easy line integration and maximum connectivity with Syntegon’s Digital Service Solutions.” As well as its upgraded drive technology, the BEC’s frame has been redesigned, reducing its footprint while still offering an accessible, operator-friendly layout.
Automation and Packaging’s director Neil Durran was having a busy show, spreading his time across the stands of principals Clevertech, Baumer, Steritech and Zilli & Bellini. One of the highlight products came from Baumer, a wrap-around case packer with the a new U-Shape Infeed System that reduces the footprint of the machine by over 50 per cent. It can handle a wide range of products, either oval, circular, square or rectangular, at high speed. It allows for a case packer to be supplied with an automatic format changeover option.
This article was first published in the July-August 2023 print issue of PKN Packaging News, p34.
