The packing machine is a widely used machinery. It’s suitable for many different categories of products packaging. However, there’re so many types of packing machines. Most people are confused to recognize it.
This article will let you know how to classify the packing machines. We will tell you how to know the packing machine. Of course, you will also know how to buy or choose the most suitable packing machine for your business.
Let’s dive into it directly.
How to classify packaging machines?
There are several ways to classify packaging machinery.
- According to function, it can be divided into a single function and multi-function packing machine.
- According to usage, it can be set into the inner packing machine and outer packing machine. The inner machine we also know it for packaging machine. The outer machine is also known as the wrapping machine, secondary packing machine, cartoning machine, box filling machine, and shrinking machine.
- According to packing material, it separates by PE film, PP woven bag, box or carton, bottle, BOPP shrinking machine, etc.
- According to package style, it separates by the pillow, gusset, quad seal, stick, sachet, 3 sides seal, 4 sides seal, alien sachet/pouch, zipper, daypack, stand-up, and so on.
- According to automation mode, there are fully automatic packing machines and semi-automatic packing machines.
- According to packaged products that need to pack, there is packing machinery for solid, liquid, and paste. Solid has granule status, pieces, bump, slices, powder, etc.
- According to the industry, there is a packing machine for food, ketchup, seasoning, seeds, pet food, snack food, sugar, sweets, candy, hardware, milk powder, coffee, cannabis, pasta, peas, beans, rice, and chickpea, etc.
Volumetric Cup Filler With Vertical Packing Machine
1. Single Function Packing Machine and Multi-function packing machine
The single function packing machine is only having one function packing machine. It includes the sealing machine, bag placing machine or pouch filling machine, filler or multi-head weigh-filling machine automatic, etc. It can only seal or place the bags, or weigh-filling.
Muti-function packing machine has several functions, like a vertical form-fill-seal machine, horizontal packing machine, bag placing machine, rotary packing machine, tea bag packing machine, etc. It can realize multi-function on one machine. Like a vertical form fill seal machine (vffs machine), it can automatically form fill seal the pouch out of the roll of packaging film. It can form into various pouches like the pillow, gusset, quad seal, sachet, triangle, stick, tea bag, etc. The horizontal machine is similar to the vertical form fill seal though some differences.
The bag placing machine (rotary packing machine) is another type of multi-function packaging system. It has multifunction. It is placing, opening (pouch & zipper), vibrating, printing, sealing, and conveying. It includes stand-up pouches, doy bag, spout pouch, zipper bag, etc
2. Inner Packing Machine & Outer Packing Machine
The difference of the inner and outer is the products. Inner machine is often used to pack the bulk products directly. While the outer machine is to pack the already been packed products. The outer package can be plastic PE bag or woven plastic PP (Polypropylene) bag.
Here we want to especially explain on the outer packing system since inner packaging system we will introduce in other paragraph.
Outer packaging system is applied for the secondary packing, such as soft package, bottle and blister package.
1). Soft package is known for secondary packing machine.
It includes “sachet into pouch”, “pouch into sack” and “pouch into carton”.
For example, 5g sachet into 150g pouch; 1kg pouch into 25kg sack. The sack can be replaced by box or carton too.
2). Bottles are been packed by shrinking machine, or by cartoning machine (packed into the carton).
3). Blister package are packed into the box, we can use the automatic box filling machine.
3. Clarify By Packaging Materials: PE film & Pre-made Pouch
PE film uses vertical form fill seal machine, horizontal FFS machine. The pre-made pouch uses a rotary packaging system.
The vffs machine consists of a vertical form fill seal machine, filler, worktable, and take-off conveyor. Sometimes it matches with the elevator too if it’s compulsory. Usually, it works with a big silo on the second floor in the workshop.
The filler can be different according to the different status of the product. For example, the granules explore volumetric cups, multi-head weigher, and linear weigher. Powder explores auger filler or screw filler. Liquid and paste explore rotary pump or piston filler.
The packaging system automatically completes forming, weighing, filling, printing, cutting, and conveying. It’s controlled by PLC (programmable logic controller) and operates with HIM (human interface microcomputer).
The roll of film could be plastic composite film, single PE or paper. It’s flexible packaging. It’s suitable for free-flowing products, such as washing powder, seasonings, puffed foods, etc.
The pre-made pouch filling machine has multi-function. It is placing, opening (bag and zipper), filling, vibrating, sealing, printing and conveying. Characterized as automation packing, it replaces the manually packing and reduces bacterial contamination during the packaging process.
Like the VFFS machine, it can also match with the fillers to pack different status of products. Matched with the multihead weigher and linear weigher, it can pack pet food, dried food and snack food. Matched with pump or piston filler, it can pack liquid products. And auger filler for powder products.
The defect is that the pre-made bag needs to remove static electricity. Otherwise, it is easily take double bags at once and open the bag.
After knowing all the categories, you may now have a picuture in mind. You might have an idea to choose one when you purchase. I will give you a general idea before you start to search for it.
First of all, you need to know that your product belong to? Is it a liquid status, granular, or powder?
You also need to know some more specs. for your product. Such as the density, viscousity (liquid/paste), diameter (granular/powder), flowdity, moisture (powder), dust or not.
Second, you may tell package style you prefer to. It may be pillow, gusset, quad seal, sachet (3 sides seal or 4 sides seal), doypack, zipper pouch, stand-up pouches, etc.
Third, you need to decide what packaging material you need to use. Wheter use roll of packaging film, or pre made pouches.
At last, you need to decide what automation mode you want. If want to save more labor cost, you can use multi-function packing machine. It’s fully automatic by using little stuff. If you have limit budget, you can consider a semi-automatic packing machine.
