End-of-Line automation for the food and packaging industry

End-of-Line automation is all about automated machinery at the end of a production line, that ensure that the product already produced is packaged ready for market.

Sometimes the term “secondary packaging” is used for this. By this, we mean that the original product is packed in, for example, a box, dolly, crate or tray.

Lan Handling Technologies designs and integrates End-of-Line automation systems.

The center of our end-of-line solution is often our (robot) case packer or palletising system. Depending on your needs, this can easily be extended with crate stackers / destackers, crate erectors and bale arm folders.

Our End-of-Line systems are easy to operate, thanks to the very user-friendly HMI. In many cases, only one operator is required for an extensive production line consisting of multiple machines.

# 1 - Meeting rising demand for food

The growth and prosperity of the world population will cause food demand to grow. It’s expected to increase by as much as 60% in 2050 compared to 2015. This calls for efficient and innovative food production processes to meet the increased demand. End-of-line automation of your machinery can contribute to this.

# 2 - Solving the labour shortage

Until 2030, it is estimated that only in the Netherlands already 40,000 people will reach retirement age (source: ING, Foodtech report). The influx of new employees is urgently needed, but heavy and simple work is not in demand. End-of-Line automation can largely solve the shortage of staff and allow your staff to specialize in other areas.

# 3 - Improving food safety

Society and consumers are becoming increasingly critical. Food is preferably as fresh as possible, traceable and of course completely safe. Automated End-of-Line solutions can improve food safety through the integration of robots. Less human interference in the production process will reduce the risk of errors.

# 4 - Improve ergonomics

Employees who manually stack heavy crates or boxes day in, day out? Then outages lurk. End-of-Line automation can greatly improve the ergonomics in your production process. Chances are that you will always need good employees in key positions, which is why the focus is increasingly on the interaction between man and machine.

# 5 - Customer is king

And that means: you might be facing an increasing variation in product packaging. Because nowadays, there is a specific product type for almost each type of customer. With End-of-Line automation you can ensure a dynamic production process, which can efficiently respond to smaller batches, many variants with fast changes.

Our engineers and technicians are experts in the design and construction of machines and packaging lines.

The challenge lies in connecting and integrating our End-of-Line solutions with existing machines and equipment from other suppliers. Think of a smooth interface with your infeed machines or automated guided vehicles (AGVs).

Your sparring partner

How can we process the capacity you have requested with our existing or minimally adapted end-of-line automation systems? How many different types of products do you want to be able to run over the line in the future? And how many different product patterns do you want to be able to handle per secondary packaging? These are questions we are happy to address with you.

The challenge at Heemskerk?

Loading various shapes of salad bowls (oval, square, hexagonal) in a customer-specific box on one production line, with a infeed speed of 50 per minute. In addition, the solution had to be future-proof, so that a higher capacity can also be run at a later stage. Check out the solution we offered and the reaction of Heemskerk.