Ullman BEC500: The world's fastest single-pass packaging line

Companies that are looking to have the most flexible and high-volume production lines now find a perfect solution. Ullmann Pac-Systeme, Germany, has introduced its new Blister Express Center 500 (BEC500), a unique blistering line that can reach speeds of up to 500 per minute. It is the fastest single-pass packaging line in the world today.

The new BEC 500 packaging line is absolutely outstanding in terms of flexibility, productivity and operation. The emergence of BEC 500 satisfies the current market demand for high-capacity packaging lines. It is suitable for medium-volume production and is also an ideal solution for contract packaging companies.

This unique line consists of a new blister packaging machine B1550, a new innovative blanking system and a new high-performance cartoner C 2504. These machines combine to form a packaging system that is flexible, fast, efficient, and maximizes productivity. The main advantages of this system are its high productivity, exceptionally quick and simple specification changes, and extremely short start-up phases. The system's ability to produce 500 packs per minute, providing outstanding flexibility and productivity is an important requirement for winning customers, and the new system can help reduce packaging costs. Its main features are as follows:

Workstation: flexible in form to ensure the continuity of the forming process

The flexible formwork station ensures the continuation of the molding process, guarantees the highest processing speed and stability, and minimizes unnecessary start-up and downtime. Once the production line starts production, a maximum production speed of 500 packs/minute can be achieved in a matter of seconds. The production line can maintain the exact consistency of the formed film, even if the film is severely distorted.

Non-contact thin film heating system: ensures high profile processing, suitable for all films

Another special feature of this line is the near-infrared heating station before the film forming step. In the shortest time, a large amount of non-contact energy transfer is performed by infrared rays to ensure a high degree of heating effect. A pyrometer detects this non-contact temperature. Once the temperature is too high or too low, the heating system reacts immediately and adjusts to the desired temperature in time. This near-infrared film heating method is suitable for all films and foils, and there are no production limitations.

Feeder: maximizes flexibility and accuracy

The new Multi-Tab reliably delivers all solid types and shapes of solids, even those with a pebble shape, a special shape, or a different thickness. Whether it is on aluminum foil or plastic film, the feeding speed can reach 20 meters/minute. A two-axis vacuum sucker system gently and precisely picks up the product from the format plate and places it in the blister, which has a filling accuracy of 99.9% and is highly reliable.

Good Product Philosophy: Guaranteed Maximum Processing Reliability

The filled blister will then be controlled online by an integrated product inspection system. Pouches that are detected as unacceptable will be stamped into different profiles than qualified blisters, making them absolutely conspicuous and then immediately rejected. Only fully qualified blisters can be transferred from the stamping station to the cartoner. The process of delivering the blisters directly to the cartoning machine is very gentle. For absolute safety, a weighing machine is integrated in the cartoner's discharge conveyor.

Cartoning machine: strong applicability

A new buckling system makes this cartoner even handle poor quality cartons. It handles all common closure systems: from seam seals to hot melt seals. All processing-related components on the cartoner are servo-driven. Without any initial storage hopper loading required manual intervention, the machine started extremely quickly.

Suitable for users

Thanks to the use of lightweight and compact format components (the main features of a single-pass packaging line), the advantages of this BEC 500 line in terms of simplicity, user adaptability, and quick format changeability are convincing. Its mold is cheap and easy to operate. Therefore, a full format change takes less than two hours. With the press of a button, all stations on the blister and cartoner automatically adjust to the new format parameters. No longer do time-consuming manual re-adjustments. This greatly saves time for changing product specifications and minimizes errors and sources, ensuring maximum process reliability.

The BEC 500 is also designed as an easy to operate and maintain production line. All workstations and operating functions are located at a suitable ergonomic height so operators can easily detect and operate. For example, the carton hopper can be raised to a height of 1.6 meters, which is conducive to comfortable cleaning and maintenance.

BEC500 has higher flexibility, higher production capacity and easier operation. This is a gratifying result of Ullmann’s R&D adjustments to the machine in order to better meet the needs of market development. This new machine can also help reduce the packaging costs of pharmaceutical companies.

Source: "Beverage Packaging Solutions"