Senba – Horizontal Form/Fill/Seal Packing Line

The newest packaging operation at Senba is a Model IM/S 7-14 horizontal form/fill/seal machine from KHS-Bartelt, Inc. that produces flexible pouches of dry products from rollstock. The machine, which was installed last May, features Indramat servo drives from Bosch Rexroth Corp. and Allen-Bradley controls from Rockwell Automation.

Film is mounted on the advanced web-handling system, which is equipped with web-tension dancer rolls. The film passes over the forming plow to form either flat or gusseted pouches. Pouches are then heat-sealed using individual, temperature-controlled seal bars. A servo-driven feed roll is used in conjunction with photo-registration sensors to produce pouches of the desired width, which are then cut with a mechanical knife.

The pouches are transferred to a chain with spring-loaded clamps that conveys them through the filling section. A pouch-detection system senses the presence or absence of a pouch and prevents filling if a pouch is not present. The machine is equipped with two fillers to handle different types of products: a servo-driven auger filler for powder and an 8-cup rotary volumetric filler with telescoping cups for small particulates. Products to be filled are transferred from a floor hopper by a Flexicon Corp. inclined screw conveyor that discharges into the filler hoppers mounted above the hf/f/s machine.

Product drops from the fillers through stainless-steel tooling and is discharged into the pouches, which have been opened by vacuum cups as they pass beneath the fill nozzles. The filled pouches are conveyed to the top-seal section, where the seal area is cleaned, and the tops are heat sealed. A 5/16-in.-dia, 270-deg display hole is then punched in the top of the pouch, after which a vacuum arm picks up the pouch and sets it on a takeaway conveyor.

A servo indexer on the machine provides electronic cam profiling to adjust acceleration and deceleration of the pouch-clamp chain during the sealing and filling operations. An Allen-Bradley programmable logic controller and touchscreen panel enable the operator to input and/or access machine functions such as timing, digital and graphic temperature control, recipe storage and retrieval, and maintenance and troubleshooting.

Pouches pass through a checkweigher and are hand-packed in shippers, which are taped by a Belcor Industries Model 150 semi-automatic taper. During PD’s visit, the hf/f/s was running 40-g (1.4-oz) pouches of Ca-CAN diet supplement, consisting of mixed milk and soybean powder for InTec Holding, Inc., Brisbane, CA.