Kiwifruit Box Filler- Bulk

Описание: Episode five: Bulk Box Fillers
Once the small but mighty barcode has been placed on each box, and the thin plastic bag inserted into each, the box is whizzed across the packhouse toward the GBF (gentle box fillers). The box manoeuvres around approximately 75m of conveyer, until it reaches the 6-lane sizer and the GBF.

The boxes are fed under the 6-lane sizer, and up to the GBF. Each box is scanned, and the barcode read so that the system knows what size fruit has been put into every box so the correct EAN label can be printed.

The GBFs on the 6 Lane sizer are operated using a system called ‘Next Available Drop’ – this means an individual box filler is not fixed to a specific size but is able to change the size it is packing on every box! This gives us more flexibility to be able to absorb size swings more readily and helps to ensure that no box fillers are sitting idle if the size profile does change.

Once the pack starts filling, the fruit are counted off the 6-lane sizer to ensure each box is given the same amount of fruit! Once the pack has its allocated fruit, a gate will shut to stop anymore fruit from jumping into the wrong boxes! Then means, the next pack can start filling seamlessly and each box having identical numbers of fruit!

Each GBF is capable of packing 5 – 6 boxes per minute and Hume Pack have 16! This means on this machine alone; we are capable of packing at least 4,800 packs per hour!

Once the fruit has been packed into each box, off it goes down the lanes into the closing sequence. This closes the plastic wrap gently over the fruit, and then moves along to the next where it closes the cardboard box. Off it goes to continue its journey around the packhouse! 🥝