BUFFALO Rock Company, a Pepsi and Cadbury Schweppes bottler took up the offer to trial an alpha model of Lantech's patent-pending No Film Break (NFB) stretch wrapping machine in 2008.
The decision to trial the machine came as a result of Buffalo Rock expansion into full-line vending, catering and food services.
According to Lantech, its new rotary-arm straddle machine with NFB is designed for operations with an in-line high-speed palletiser. It is rated at 60-80 pallets per hour, but is also available with a high-speed option for 80-100 pallets per hour.
The patent-pending NFB system uses metered film payout. The roll carriage feeds out pre-stretched film, which then recovers on the load to produce the containment force.
The machine includes Lantech's patented Pallet-Grip load locking system as standard. Pallet-Grip attaches a load to the pallet with bottom wraps of film that have been twisted into a cable along the lower edge of the film web. The film cable is wrapped with 50 percent higher wrap force as it is secured below the deck of the pallet, while the remaining film web stays above the deck to secure the load. The wrap cycle position also ensures when the pallet is picked up by a fork truck, the load is not punctured.
The NFB machine also features a visual management system which details productivity reports to floor personnel or, via Ethernet, to a central monitoring system. Data tracked and charted in the machine control include machine capacity vs. true utilization; stoppages for starvation, blockage or film break; loads wrapped per hour, shift, day, week and month; loads wrapped per roll of film and a host of other key metrics.
The control also reports how many pallets can be wrapped with the film remaining on the roll, allowing operators to budget their time efficiently for reloading.
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