A proven leader in the flavors and extracts industry.
Recently, Cozzoli was approached by this customer who was looking to fill gallon-sized containers of liquid flavoring. This was to be a complete line that would incorporate filling, capping, labeling and case packing. Because of the high alcohol content of what was being filled, the filling and capping sections needed to also be explosion-proof.
With the required speed of 20 containers per minute and the containers being clear, it was decided that a 10-head In-Line Fill-To-Level and our Versacapper were the best machines for this application. By using a fill-to-level machine, the liquid in each container would appear to be visually identical. If a volumetric filler was used instead, the volume of each container would be accurate, but due to slight variations in the containers, the visual levels of the liquid could appear higher or lower.
After being capped, the containers would then be moved to another room, via conveyor, where they will be labeled and eventually packed into boxes.
Because of the product’s high alcohol content, the filling and capping processes needed to have a NEMA 7 explosion-proof rating. This meant that the electronics that are typically located inside of the machines, were moved to an external control panel, located in an area outside of the filling area. The labeling and case packing was also done in a location outside of the room where the filling took place.
For the labeling and case packing sections of this line, we reached out to our partners at ID Technology and Epson. The challenge for these areas was that the customer wanted the labels to be print-on-demand. Rather than having the labels feed off of a role, which is the typical application, they needed to be fed directly from the printer to the labeler.
The biggest challenge of integrating the printer with the labeler is that the printer backs up about 12” every time it begins to print. To combat this issue, we used a loose-loop system that uses sensors to monitor the status of the printer and labels.
3 sensors were added into the loose-loop system. The lowest sensor monitors the loose loop to stop the printer when enough labels have been printed. The middle sensor tells the printer to produce more labels. The top sensor signals out-of-labels and stops the applicator until more are available. By using this loose-loop system we successfully integrated the printer with the labeler.
Finally, after labeling, the containers are then moved to a table where they are manually packed into boxes and fed through a case packer, which automatically closes, tapes and applies a label to the box.
For more information on how we can help with your complete filling line applications, email us at Sales@Cozzoli.com or give us a call at 732-564-0400.