Autefa sweeps away bottle breakage problems

What if all the bottles you received made it into production without breaking? Autefa Automation of Augsburg Germany has found a way to stop one of the most common problems of automated depalletising – glass bottle breakage.

Traditionally, bulk glass bottles are delivered on flat intermediate layers (slip sheets), which are often protected by stretch/shrink films. This results in the rounded corners of the slip sheets bending downwards. The deformation of the slip sheet causes bottles to fall down during the sweep off process and often results in broken bottles with the potential for glass fragment contamination on the filling line.

Autefa took one extra step in its depalletiser design. The Autefa Sweep-Off Depalletiser is equipped with an additional lifting column and centering frame which is separate from the sweep-off table. The machine fixes and secures the bottle layer during every lifting and sweeping movement. Each bottle layer remains fixed by the centering frame until the sweep-off cycle is complete. Intelligent software maintains control of the bottles at all times to ensure precision and minimise breakages.

Autefa is taking its glass bottle depalletiser to interpack. If you are going, you can see it demonstrated there. It will also have its patented Vacugrip for empty plastic bottle palletiser/depalletiser solution on display.

To find out more in the meantime or if you are not going to interpack, contact HBM Plastics & Packaging Technologies in Sydney, Melbourne or New Zealand.