The new “Automation UK” exhibition for automation and robotics

Mark Stepney and his team will have their own stand (A10) and will be on site to advise visitors on the potential of Schubert’s innovative packaging solutions and on their many possible applications. Highlights will include the cobot, which is now ready for series production, a bar packer with an innovative infeed, the new Box Motion unit in the flowpacker’s cross-sealing system and Schubert’s “Packaging Perspectives” customer service for sustainable packaging.

The new Automation UK exhibition is organised by BARA (British Association of Robotics and Automation) and the PPMA (Processing and Packaging Machine Association), the umbrella organisation representing over 550 member companies in the processing and packaging machinery industry in the UK. Mark Stepney, Managing Director of Schubert UK, is BARA’s Vice Chairman and was elected to the PPMA Board three years ago. Since then, he and his team at Schubert have been working towards the Automation UK event and he explains: “Automation and robotics are among the key technologies that are successfully driving the UK economy into the future. The widespread shortage of skilled workers and recurring supply bottlenecks are currently posing major challenges for companies. We can only meet these challenges with innovations that automate production and make it more efficient, leaner and more cost-effective.”

Stepney sees the Automation UK exhibition as an ideal opportunity for companies to get up close and personal with today’s cutting-edge technologies: “With many exciting live demonstrations, compelling information and in-depth consulting, the exhibitors are all committed to giving visitors first-hand insight and impressions of the latest automation and robotics technologies. Of course, it is essential that companies find out what the various applications can do for their production processes before they consider investing.”

The experts from Schubert will also be providing information on the bar packer with the new TLM Comfort Feeder and A6 erector, as well as the new Box Motion unit on the flowpacker – with the aid of animation and videos. The TLM Comfort Feeder is a new, extremely compact solution for automating the feeding of carton blanks to the packaging machine. Until now, machine operators have had to react very quickly to avoid unnecessary stops when the blank holding magazines run empty. Now all it takes is to simply place the entire pallet with the blank sheets into the machine. An F4 robot then pulls blanks one by one directly from a sheet of multiple (still attached) blanks and feeds them into the erecting process at a speed of 60 cycles per minute. The new A6 erector then pulls each blank individually from the bottom of a buffer and transports it past the gluing unit to a folding device. There, a forming mandrel pushes the blank through the folding frame, erecting it, and then places the erected carton onto the transport system. The combination of a new type of sheet infeed, high erecting capacity and loading and closing – all in an extremely compact space – offers customers an exceptionally advantageous machine concept called TLM Power Compact. With the TLM Comfort Feeder, the blank sheet can be optimised even further to maximise packaging material utilisation – saving material, resources and costs.