Langenpac NV was established in the Netherlands in 1988 as a daughter company of Toronto-based Langen Inc, which by that time already had 30 years of expertise in producing packaging machines. In 1997, both companies became part of Molins PLC with the aim of generating a stronger focus in their own territories, with them joining forces again in 2008 under the Langen Packaging Group name.

 Throughout the company’s history, Langenpac has been dedicated to providing packaging solutions that enhance its customers’ total packaging process. Sales director Ruud Dippell told Packaging Europe, “Our long-term aims of greater globalisation of our brand, exemplary service and support for our customers has always been and continues to be the driving force behind our growth.”

 Cartoning systems adding value

 As a leading European supplier of cartoning systems, the Langenpac packaging machinery portfolio is designed for minimum operator intervention through sophisticated automation. Mr Dippell continued, “We are committed to adding value to our customers’ businesses by offering a competitive edge to their packaging processes. Our quick, reliable and repetitive format change is an example of this, combined with minimum service sensitive machine design and construction. Service requirements are also kept to an absolute minimum, so that the customer’s own service team can easily handle first line issues quickly and effectively. We also offer service training and remote support as key elements to our after sales support so, if a customer needs us quickly on-site, we’re there.”

 With its best selling products currently the easy-to-service Chinook, Vento and LRC top load series cartoners, Langenpac develops machinery after close cooperation with its customers. The aim is always to deliver exactly what the customer requires and, as Langenpac’s client list includes some of the biggest household names in the consumer products sector, it’s often called upon to create solutions for very demanding projects.

 “We have a reputation for innovative and robust solutions for challenging packaging projects, thanks to our ability to offer higher speed product handling,” Mr Dippell explained. “The collations needed for this are not straight forward and this is our real strength. It’s no longer enough to simply offer machines that are capable of cartoning processes – we differentiate ourselves by creating quicker product handling capabilities in different ways for different clients. It’s a bespoke process that gives great rewards.”

 Building relationships

 This product development process is understandably time consuming, with some Langenpac client collaborations taking years to get to the installation phase. Mr Dippell is clear that this investment of time and money delivers a positive outcome for both parties, however, because the intense understanding of its customer requirements ensures the packaging machinery is perfectly integrated. “We don’t just create and integrate packaging machinery for our clients’ current demands,” he continued. “We look at their current machinery, at our past solutions that may be suitable in some way and then work together to make a choice that best suits both their current applications and the future aims for their production lines. Langenpac machinery isn’t just for one moment in time, it’s an almost future-proof packaging solution for our clients’ changing needs.”

 The extensive technical capabilities at Langenpac’s facilities are utilised by its global design team. Using the very latest 3D engineering software, the design process is a carefully-controlled use of the knowledge and experience of the team. The Langen Packaging Group has around 200 employees, equally spread between Canada and the Netherlands and, as a Group, has the capacity to offer single cartoning applications or full end-of-line packaging, including turnkey solutions with other upstream machinery.

 Investment and development

 Investment in people and equipment underpins the Group’s continued success. Langenpac is looking forward to the introduction of a new cartoner machine in Q3 2010, which is only one illustration of an important phase of technical development, with the majority customer-specific and not to be disclosed. This represents the Langenpac commitment to establishing and maintaining long-term relationships with its clients by developing packaging machinery solutions that give them the extra edge in an often exclusive contract.

 The next twelve months will also see Langenpac focus on growing its presence in Asia Pacific and Australasia to complement its existing strength in European and North American markets. Mr Dippell concluded, “We will continue to cooperate with a number of global accounts and the current global accounts will intensify and increase. We regularly prove ourselves as a packaging partner that adds value to our global customers’ offer, so we intend to enhance these relationships through greater agency networks and face to face meetings. We work alongside our customers and want to learn from them, so we can continue to provide exemplary packaging machines that perfectly suit their needs. It’s a challenging and exciting time for Langenpac.”

Contact Springvale Equipment for further information on Langenpac

How do you guarantee people’s safety when dealing with dangerous or toxic materials?  Not only that, how do you automate a dangerous filling process while guaranteeing the right materials go to the right place at the right quantity?

For years, Feige Filling has been supplying industrial machines used to fill different containers.  In 2006, this German company developed a new robotic filling technology equipped with Cognex vision that opens up completely new opportunities for filling with regard to safety, speed and cost effectiveness.  Equipped with the In-Sight ™5401 camera plus PatMax™, the “Robot Filler”, a robot with a four or six-jointed arm, can locate the different container stoppers or filling even when they arrive in various positions on the pallet.

Vision tools that find and fill

One of the RobotFiller’s most important functions is to locate the stoppers with screw closures on the drums. As the stoppers are arranged off-centre at the edge of the drum lid, they tend to be in a different position on every pallet. Without a precision vision system, safe and rapid opening, filling and closing would not be possible. Cognex PatMax technology makes In-Sight especially fast and reliable. This revolutionary tool for high-precision location of objects using pattern-matching technology reads and recognises an enormous variety of patterns. Once the stopper is located, the filling process starts. The first step is for the RobotFiller to pick up a tool which it uses to remove the screw closures of the drums and put them down on a tray. It then changes tool and grips the filling valve to suit the filling job. This is the innovational step for the future of automatic filling of large containers on pallets. Without human intervention, RobotFiller can switch different filling valves and tools for further processing fully automatically, considerably accelerating the filling process. In addition, the RobotFiller protects staff when critical substances are being handled, as the complete filling area can be enclosed and subjected to extraction. Following precisely calibrated filling, the jointed-arm robot switches tools again to pick up the stoppers and close the containers. With the drums filled, the pallet is ready to be transported by the conveyor belt.

 Safety in traceability – the right material for the right container

Code-reading properties mean that the In-Sight 5401 can detect every container. The information passed on to a safety system further up the chain ensures that the right containers for filling are located on the pallet. This plausibility check means that the In-Sight 5401 increases process safety and helps save costs, as the incorrect assignment of filling material to container is ruled out. Plus the rugged, robust characteristics of the In-Sight 5401 are of real value in this kind of operating environment susceptible as it is to toxic material and flammable substances.

 For engineer Axel Frank, Automation Technology Manager at Feige Filling, the benefits of the In-Sight 5401 with the jointed-arm robot are obvious. Attached directly to the end of the robot arm and supported by eight LEDs arranged in a circle, the intelligent camera system ensures optimum processes. The automation expert particularly appreciates the fact that he does not require any additional evaluation electronics with an industry PC. He also values the clear assignment of interfaces which makes it much easier for users to familiarize themselves with the system.

Just add vision  – to get the most flexible filling system in the world

Cognex real-time image detection means that the RobotFiller is currently the most flexible filling system in the world. Speed, cost saving, process reliability and above all increased protection for the operator make Feige Filling high technology plus innovative Cognex vision systems the compatible combination of the future.

Return to Springvale http://www.springequip.co.uk

 The new facility, developed with an investment of £1.5 million, to provide drumming, warehousing and despatch services for Ineos Chlor Vinyls, will handle around 90,000 tonnes of products using the latest Feige drum filling and handling technology to provide a safe and effective operation.

 As with all Suttons and Ineos operations, safety is of paramount importance and the installation uses Feige’s latest drum handling technology to reduce manual handling risks.  Safety is further enhanced using dedicated extraction systems and enclosed automatic and semi-automatic drum filling operations.

 The installation has an empty drum storage magazine capable of simultaneously handling 6 different drum types and a total capacity of 1584 drums.  Two fully automatic Feige drum filling machines are installed, each capable of filling 60 drums an hour, with an additional pallet filler capable of filling different size drums and intermediate bulk containers (IBC’s).  Feige’s machinery sourced through Springvale Equipment Ltd.

 The Suttons operation currently handles 5 different product streams, which are delivered into the plant by dedicated Suttons road tankers.

 The majority of drums are exported to Ineos customers in Asia and the Americas.  Filled drums can either be loaded directly into containers or diverted to an automatic palletiser for storage and subsequent despatch.

 The operation has been designed to provide a “just in time” service to Ineos Chlor, minimising the need to hold large stocks whilst ensuring the high quality of the finished product.

 Commenting, Suttons Group Managing Director Andrew Palmer said “the combination of Suttons investment,  Feige’s drumming operation expertise and our excellent relationship with Ineos Chlor has delivered a successful, high quality, safe and effective operation.  In addition, we are now looking at developing our drumming activities in other international markets, specifically Asia”.

 For further information on Feige, contact Springvale Equipment Ltd – 01420 542505       www.springequip.co.uk

Developments have been made to U-E-T’s compact cartoning machine specifically to target the pharmaceutical markets, an enhanced version of this has recently been installed within the UK for a World leading global manufacturer.

Many products in this industry could be hazardous and with this in mind U-E-T changed the machine plate style to ensure that in these instances there is no chance of particles/droplets being left in difficult to clean areas or indeed them dropping to the floor.   Other nice features include coding systems, synchronisation with vision inspection systems checking leaflets, cartons & pharma codes.

In cases where there may be products that have more than 1 part to it additional product sensors are built into the machine enabling the operator to be alerted if there are any missing parts, the operation is then halted until the carton is filled correctly/removed. 

Health & Safety has been enhanced by fitting security switches onto access doors allowing them only to be opened when machine is in stop position and not during cycling.

CONTACT:

SPRINGVALE EQUIPMENT LTD FOR FURTHER INFORMATION – 01420 542505

 There are a number of reasons why faulty packages especially in the food and confectionery industry need to be unpacked.  This may be necessary due to machine start-up waste, wrong coding, best-before-use date overdue, under-or overfilling etc.  It would be too expensive to unpack such material manually or to completely throw away the product.

The German made PACK-SAVER range of Product Recovery Machines from LEU-TRONIC (www.Leu-Tronic.de) are designed to allow a clean separation of product from its packaging material.  The PACK-SAVER does not work with knives, but using adjustable tear-off rails to open the packages.  Due to the rail rotation and the special shape of the assorting chamber, an air-stream is produced which “blows” the empty wrapping material out of the machine.  The product is then transported to a vibration sieving device, where an exhausting device separates small wrapper particles from the product, which then can be re-processed and used again.

Depending on product, a capacity of up to 400kg per hour can be achieved.  Only one operator is needed to control a PACK-SAVER.

Typical products which are being recovered are;

coffee, tea, sugar, confectionery, chewing gum, chocolate bars, biscuits, crisps, detergent tablets etc.

For further information call

Springvale Equipment Ltd – 01420 542505 – www.springequip.co.uk

The prices are equally “slimline” as follows:

Slimline 4 for 25 litre containers             ex works Germany €9,375

Slimline 9 for 200 litre drums                  ex works Germany €11,875

Slimline 8 for IBC’s                                ex works Germany €13,125

Keeping with the economy theme we also represent Pack’R who specialise in weigh filling machines for containers from 1 litre – 25 litre and they too have launched a range of filler/cappers for straight forward projects needing a reliable monobloc filler/capper. www.packr.com

There are two machines in this range: a 6 head or an 8 head filling turret both with a single capping station.  The standard machine will include:

*Weigh filling technology with gravimetric tank

*Product infeed valve controlled by a level detector

*Capping station (screw or press-on cap)

*Motorised conveyor 3m in length

*Guards with interlocked doors (CE)

*Tooling for 1 container/1 cap (option for additional tooling for other containers)

*Siemens plc

                        6 head               8 head

1 litre or less                 50cpm                50cpm

2 litre                           40cpm                50cpm

5 litre                           20cpm                30cpm

10 litre                          14cpm                20cpm  (only cylindrical on this range)

Budget Price for 6 head filler/capper                    ex works France €85,000

Budget Price for 8 head filler/capper                    ex works France €100,000

Options available include CIP, coloured touch screen, statistics and production report, diving nozzles, cap elevator, click & play tooling, buckets.

                    

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