Wrap-Around Case Packing for Cheese Trays

Company

This application was developed for a French food group specialising in the processing and sale of dairy products including cheese, butter, cream and ingredients.

To strengthen its leading position in cheese specialities and soft cheeses, the company wanted to improve the performance of its production lines. It therefore contacted JYGA for a project to automate case packing on three production lines for cheese trays.

The system had to receive stacks of flat retail-case blanks as well as products from three production lines. It also had to pack the products, close the retail cases, inspect and reject poorly glued cases and allow integration of a labeller.

Specific requirements:
Full cases had to be discharged to three existing overhead lines.
The installation also had to allow manual palletizing at the case-packer outfeeds.
Depending on production requirements, the system had to accept plastic bins, load products into them and return the full bins to the overhead retail lines.

For this project, the company was looking for a reliable partner able to meet performance and lead-time commitments and demonstrate expertise in end-of-line packaging design.

Project & solution

To meet this requirement, JYGA recommended installing three robotic wrap-around case packers for shelf-ready cases. Each machine includes a cardboard-blank magazine, a product-loading module, a case-discharge module and an empty-bin network.

Key features:

The case packers are equipped with two TS60 robots mounted on raised supports. At the case-packing station, a vision sensor detects tray orientation. Product spacing is controlled upstream of the vision system to optimise robot utilisation.
Each machine is equipped with a fork descender that feeds the lug-chain conveyor so it can receive a bin. Depending on production requirements, plastic bins are transferred to one of the three case packers. Filling and discharge are then handled in the same way as a retail case.