What is the function of wrapping machine?

Technology has changed a great deal in the past few decades. Consequently, so has the ways in which companies package and ship their products. Before such technology became commonplace, most processes were slowly and laboriously done by hand. Nowadays, these processes are handled by specialized equipment that makes them easier, faster, and more precise than ever before. The piece of revolutionary packaging equipment you’ve likely heard about is the stretch wrapping machine. There are many benefits to using stretch wrapping machines at your packaging facility, from boosted production levels to increased protection for your products. But what do you use stretch wrapping machines for, exactly? What are they, and how do they work? In this guide, we’ll go over everything you need to know about stretch wrappers and their use.

What Are Stretch Wrappers?

A stretch wrap machine is a piece of equipment that automatically wraps pallets with stretch wrap. This keeps the products housed inside of the pallet contained and safe from damage. The main purposes of stretch wrapping are to make products easier to transport in bulk and protect individual products from damage during shipping, so they arrive at their destination point unharmed. Although pallet loads can be wrapped by hand, using machines is the faster, more reliable, and more accurate method due to a couple of reasons that we’ll delve into later.

Though all stretch wrappers are designed with the same end goal in mind—to wrap something with stretch wrap—their visual appearance and the way they function varies depending on their design and whether they’re semi-automatic or fully automatic.

The Types of Stretch Wrappers

When it comes to stretch wrapping machines, there are a lot of different options in terms of design and functionality. The most popular types include turntable, rotary arm, and horizontal configurations.

Turntable

A turntable stretch wrapping machine will feature a turntable, which is a round, revolving platform that turns in a circle while the stretch film is dispensed and applied to the pallet load. This kind of stretch wrapper is ideal for use with most applications, making it extremely versatile.

Rotary Arm

A mechanical arm that rotates around and wraps the pallet is the key feature of rotary arm stretch wrappers. This kind of stretch wrapper is ideal for use with loads that are on either end of the weight spectrum. Whether the load is super light or super heavy, a rotary arm will work with it perfectly.

Horizontal

A horizontal wrapper dispenses the stretch film from around a ring that surrounds a horizontally laid product. This kind of stretch wrapper is ideal for wrapping lengthy items that would otherwise be hard to wrap, such as windows, doors, lumber, textiles, copper piping, and corrugated tubes.

How Stretch Wrappers Work

The way that stretch wrapping machines work depends on whether the machine in question is semi-automatic or automatic.

Automatic

As the name suggests, an automatic stretch wrapping machine does everything automatically. It carries a pallet to the wrap zone via roller conveyors. Once the machine is done wrapping the pallet, it sends it to the end of the packaging line down the exit conveyor. The next pallet is transferred to the wrap zone, and the process repeats.

Semi-Automatic

A semi-automatic stretch wrapper works similarly to an automatic one. The main difference between the two is that the semi-automatic stretch wrappers require an operator to be present to load and unload the pallet and if needed manually adjust the machinery throughout the process.

Why Should I Use Stretch Wrappers?

You know what stretch wrappers are, the different types of stretch wrapping machines, and how each of their configurations work. But what do you use stretch wrapping machines for? What can these automatic machines do to improve your business’s efficiency and bottom line? Well, it turns out they can do quite a lot.

Many business owners wrongly assume that hand-wrapping will save them money. You won’t have to spend on machinery if you stick to hand wrapping, they think, and that’s true—however, wrapping something by hand is a terribly inefficient and unreliable method that’ll cost you more in the long run than purchasing and operating stretch wrapping machinery would. A small business might be able to get by just fine with hand wrapping, but if you’re wrapping more than ten loads in a day, you’d be much better off automating the process. There are a couple of reasons for this, which we’ll discuss below.

Machines Are More Reliable Than Humans

Your employees might be reliable, but it’s hard to beat the consistency of machines. Mistakes are only human, and your workers are bound to make the occasional blunder. They might struggle to wrap with the right amount of containment force or end up using more stretch wrap than necessary. Machines, on the other hand, will use the right amount of containment force, as well as stretch wrap, each and every time. In applying the correct amount of containment force, machines ensure that your products remain safe during transit and arrive at their destination safely. They’ll also stretch the film more than can be done manually, getting the most out of your stretch film investment. How, might you ask? Let’s find out.

Hand Film Doesn’t Equal Stretch Film

Hand wrapping will give you anywhere from 10 to 20 percent stretch of the film. Machine wrapping, on the other hand, can give you anywhere from 200 to 300 percent. Stretch wrappers are now being introduced that get up to 500 percent pre-stretch. By automating the stretch wrapping process, you’ll save money on film. This is because the right stretch wrapping technology will pre-stretch the film, allowing you to get more done with less and stretch the use of a single roll of film further.

To sum things up, stretch wrapping machines are used because they’re a much better alternative to hand wrapping loads. They’re faster, more reliable, and more cost-effective, amongst numerous other benefits.

If you’re planning on making the switch from hand wrapping to machine wrapping, Robopac USA has semi-automatic pallet wrappers and other state-of-the-art secondary packaging equipment that can benefit your business. We create our machinery with the latest, most efficient technology and are dedicated to providing our customers with the information and support they need to get the most out of their machines. Come and shop with us today!

Any machine used for packaging

Equipment on a pharmaceutical packaging line

Packaging machinery is used throughout all packaging operations, involving primary packages to distribution packs. This includes many packaging processes: fabrication, cleaning, filling, sealing, combining, labeling, overwrapping, palletizing.

Overview

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Some packaging operations cannot be accomplished without packaging equipment. For example many packages include heat seals to prepare or seal a package. Heat sealers are needed, even in slow labor-intensive operations.

With many industries, the effectiveness of the heat seal is critical to product safety so the heat sealing operation must closely controlled with documented Verification and validation protocols. Food, drug, and medical regulations require consistent seals on packages. Proper equipment is needed.

Automation

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Packaging operations can be designed for variable package sizes and forms or for handling only uniform packages, where the machinery or packaging line is adjustable between production runs. Certainly slow manual operations allow workers to be flexible to package variation but also some automated lines can handle significant random variation.[1]

Moving from manual operations, through semi-automatic operations to fully automated packaging lines offers advantages to some packagers.[2] Other than the obvious control of labor costs, quality can be more consistent, and throughput can be optimized.[3]

Efforts at packaging line automation increasingly use programmable logic controllers[4] and robotics.[5]

Large fully automatic packaging lines can involve several pieces of major equipment from different manufactures as well as conveyors and ancillary equipment. Integrating such systems can be a challenge. Often consultants or external engineering firms are used to coordinate large projects.

Choosing packaging machinery

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Choosing packaging machinery includes an assessment of technical capabilities, labor requirements, worker safety, maintainability, serviceability, reliability, ability to integrate into the packaging line, capital cost, floorspace, flexibility (change-over, materials, multiple products, etc.), energy requirements, quality of outgoing packages, qualifications (for food, pharmaceuticals, etc.), throughput, efficiency, productivity, ergonomics, return on investment, etc.

Packaging machinery can be:

1. purchased as standard, off-the-shelf equipment
2. purchased custom-made or custom-tailored to specific operations
3. purchased refurbished and upgraded
4. manufactured or modified by in-house engineers and maintenance staff

Double chamber vacuum packer

In addition to purchasing equipment, leasing options are often attractive.[6]

Machinery must be compatible with the expected operating conditions. For example, cold temperature operations require special considerations.[7] Some industries must perform periodic washdowns of all equipment. This high pressure chemical washing puts special demands on machinery and control systems.[8][9] Condensation within closed portions of machinery can also be problematic.

Machinery needs to keep control of the product being packaged. For example, powders need to be stable, liquids cannot slosh out,[10] etc.

Some manufacturers decide not to do their own packaging but to employ contract packagers to perform all or some operations. Capital, labor, and other costs are outsourced.

Types of machinery

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Checkweigher Milk bag form-fill-seal operation

Packaging machines may be of the following general types:

Function

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Packaging is necessary to protect products, and is now done mainly through the use of packaging machinery. Machinery plays increasingly important roles such as:

• Improve labor productivity. Sliding blister sealing machine packaging machinery is much faster than manual packaging. One good example of this is the candy packing machine. Here, hundreds to thousands of candies can be wrapped in minutes.
• Ensure packaging quality. Mechanical packaging is particularly important for exported goods to achieve consistent packaging.
• Handle specialized requirements, such as vacuum packaging, inflatable packaging, skin packaging and pressure filling.
• Reduce labor and improve working conditions for bulky/heavy products.
• Protect workers from health effects brought by dust, toxic/hazardous products and prevent environmental contamination.
• Reduce packaging costs and save storage costs for loose products, such as cotton, tobacco, silk, linen, etc., by simply using compression packaging.
• Reliably ensure product hygiene by eliminating hand contact with food and medicines.

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See also

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References

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Books, general references

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• Yam, K.L., "Encyclopedia of Packaging Technology", John Wiley & Sons, 2009, ISBN 978-0-470-08704-6
• Soroka, W, Illustrated Glossary of Packaging Terminology Institute of Packaging Professionals, [1]
• Soroka, W, "Fundamentals of Packaging Technology", Chapter 19 – Packaging Machinery, IoPP, 2002, ISBN 1-930268-25-4
• Henry J R, "Packaging Machinery Handbook", 2012, ISBN 1479274518
• Kay, M.G., 2012, Material Handling Equipment, Retrieved 2014-10-02.

• Packaging machines at Wikimedia Commons