Project Overview
Brenton manufactures integrated back-end packaging systems for the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical industries, including cartoning, boxing, robotic palletizing, and material handling. Founded 30 years ago, the company is now part of the ProMach Group. A major U.S. contract packaging company invited Brenton to collaborate on a challenging frozen pizza packaging project. This fast-paced factory required packaging machines capable of random, timed feeding and handling 26 different frozen pizza SKUs, some in cardboard boxes and others in simple plastic film shrink wrap.
“This application required us to eliminate the significant time spent on changing between different product sizes, which presented a considerable challenge. Changing from a 10-inch to a 15-inch pizza required time-consuming mechanical adjustments,” explained Mike Grinager, Vice President of Technology at Brenton. “We also had to achieve a high throughput of 15 cartons per minute without damaging the products. This became very complicated because the pizzas were stacked at different heights and orientations as they slowed down on the packaging line.”
Intelligent conveying technology helps to easily achieve product differentiation.
Considering these needs, Brenton ultimately decided to equip its most popular M2000 intermittent side-loading carton packaging machine with a mechatronic linear conveyor system. "This decision led Brenton to Beckhoff's XTS magnetic drive flexible conveyor system, which we found could adapt instantly to these product changes," said Gringer. "Using the XTS system, we developed an M2000 packaging machine capable of skillfully handling all pizza shapes, orientations, and product sizes with completely random feed times, including display packaging and bulk packaging."
The upgraded M2000 packaging machine is now equipped with a 5.5-meter-long XTS track with 12 movers controlling product feeding. As a true mechatronics solution, the XTS system combines the characteristics of linear motors with continuously cyclically moving movers, allowing for both open and closed operating paths to support a wide variety of geometries. The most significant feature of the movers is their ability to generate clamping force during movement: two synchronously moving movers work together to grip and hold the pizza stacks in the bucket with a predetermined force for fast and reliable transport to the carton packaging step.
“That’s the beauty of this packaging machine: it can handle a stack of 15 heat-shrink packaged round pizzas and quickly adapt to feeding pizzas already in square packages, all in minimal changeover time,” said Mike Grinager.
The XTS system can also easily compensate for varying feed times during the feeding process because the mover can move without distance restrictions, buffering products before the loading station and saving more time for other production processes when needed. Mike Grinager continued, “The XTS system can move stacked pizzas into cartons, significantly reducing congestion and downtime, something none of the other systems we evaluated could do.” Given the weight of the pizzas stacked higher, Brenton’s first XTS application had to address the heavy-load conveying challenges in such applications. Therefore, Brenton integrated HepcoMotion’s GFX track system, specifically designed for XTS, which can handle greater loads.
A high-performance C6930 control cabinet industrial PC, along with an ultra-high-speed EtherCAT communication system and corresponding EtherCAT I/O terminal modules, is used to control the XTS and other device functions.
The XTS magnetic drive flexible conveyor system is the core of Brenton's M2000 packaging machine. As shown in the picture above, the XTS system carries a string of buckets containing pizzas around a 180-degree turn, gripping and stabilizing the pizza stack.
The XTS controller uses Beckhoff's C6930 cabinet-type industrial PC. The packaging machine controller is connected to a 15-inch CP2915 multi-touch control panel display. Despite involving highly dynamic motion control, the XTS system utilizes only about 15% of the industrial PC's computing power, leaving sufficient performance reserves for implementing other automation functions.
Subsequent iterations of the Brenton M2000 series also feature the EL series of high-speed EtherCAT terminal modules for EtherCAT I/O systems, including a high-density 8-channel model. “Beckford’s EtherCAT I/O system’s interoperability with other fieldbuses greatly simplifies integration,” said Mike Grinager. “It’s also easy for the Brenton engineering team to establish connections with EtherNet/IP devices. EtherCAT is extremely fast and has very high synchronization, making it ideal as a bus for mechatronics systems such as XTS,” added Patrick Triemert, an applications engineer at Beckford USA.
A high-performance C6930 control cabinet industrial PC, along with an ultra-high-speed EtherCAT communication system and corresponding EtherCAT I/O terminal modules, is used to control the XTS and other device functions.
The XTS system helps significantly increase the throughput of packaging machines.
The XTS system has significantly increased the throughput of Brenton's M2000 packing machine. The M2000 can now pack up to 41 different SKUs separately, at a rate of 27 boxes per minute, or 140 frozen pizzas per minute. The machine also supports 26 different packaging modes, including more complex display and commercial packaging, with a throughput of 12.5 boxes per minute. "One M2000 packing machine equipped with the XTS system can actually do the work of three traditional carton packing machines," said Mike Grinager.
The use of the XTS system eliminated many replacement steps, reducing downtime for replacing other feeders from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. The engineering time for the M2000 feed section was reduced by at least 200 hours, and the number of components in the feed section, such as chains, aircraft, push rods, and rotating mechanisms, was reduced by about 100, thus greatly reducing complexity.
Following this, Brenton received its third order from a contract packaging company and inquiries from other customers for packaging machines equipped with the XTS system. In addition to supporting Brenton's continued growth in the mature packaging market, XTS has opened up many new project types for the OEM manufacturer, particularly in pharmaceutical applications, allowing it to consolidate and expand its market share. "XTS has also supported our new packaging machine design projects that we might have previously abandoned. We now have new, faster, and more flexible designs that reduce equipment size by 50%. After our initial success with the XTS system, we are now researching the XTS hygienic system for the food industry and the XPlanar planar magnetic drive flexible conveyor system to meet some of the industry's most challenging material handling requirements," said Griniger.
