Recently HAVER &
BOECKER carried out a pilot project in Kaisheim, Bavaria at the Gandl
Natursteine GmbH company. It was the first time a HAVER-FFS machine was used
for filling natural stones.
The family-run company of
Gandl trades in natural stones, and processes them. The variety of natural
stones is broad: granite, porphyry, quartzite, quartz sandstone, marble, slate,
dolomite, shell limestone, basalt and limestone belong to its product range.
Now these are being packed by a HAVER FFS Alpha. It’s the heart of the complete
packing system. Material feeding is done by a heavy conveyor, followed by
washing of the stone. At the end, there’s a robotic palletising unit with film
packaging, which includes online printing and a complete pallet gathering lane.
The challenge faced in this
system was to generate a concept and a functionality that allowed the fully
automatic filling and packing of fine sand, pea-stone, fine gravel and coarse
natural stone (up to 60 mm) via selectable sort adjustment. With it, there’s
comprehensive film and bag size selection that allows the filling of various
premium quality products into transparent film packaging.
Under the lead-management
of HAVER & BOECKER and project manager Sebastian Südhoff, the family-owned
machine builder in Oelde, Westphalia developed together with film
manufacturer RKW and BEUMER a
packaging concept that fulfils the highest demands for this new market segment.
Customer requirements for
greater flexibility, ease of operation and optimum packaging quality were
fulfilled to the fullest extent.