Case study: 75% less plastic packaging thanks to adhesive palletising

One of the companies that uses stabilising products on the pallet using adhesive is the Swiss company Swissmill. It is the largest mill in Switzerland, milling up to 1000 tonnes of grain a day. The mill supplies flour, semolina and flakes for the production of breakfast cereals and bakery products. It implemented the system for stabilising cardboard boxes on the pallet in 2020.

Previously, Swissmill used 100% plastic film to stabilise its products for transport. Within just 8 months of implementation, this share fell to 25%. This led to a dramatic reduction in the consumption of single-use plastics. The oat flakes are filled into 500-gram packs, 12 of which are then placed into a cardboard box. A palletising robot then stacks 84 boxes in seven cross-layers onto the pallet at the end of the production line.

Swissmill decided to implement the Robatech adhesive stabilisation system after 2 weeks of trial operation. "After I saw the manual test system for palletising with PSA hot melt adhesive in action, I was quickly able to get an idea of how it works and what potential for saving packaging costs this solution holds for us," recalls Swissmill's head of production, Erwin Waldvogel. "Removing the products from the pallet is also very easy. We tried sending out a few pallets and our suppliers and carriers had no problem with it," he adds. Shortly afterwards, the investment in a fully automated solution was made, which is still in operation today.

The adhesive application is carried out by 2 application heads, which apply it to the top of the cereal box. They automatically skip only the boxes in the last layer. This is ensured by the integrated palletising function in the melter, which communicates directly with the control system of the palletising robot.

All in all, the implementation brought the company a range of savings. In addition to the dramatic reduction in the consumption of plastic film, production time was also reduced. Previously, staff had to move the pallet of boxes from the production line to the packaging station, where it was secured with film, and then pick the pallet up again. With 25 to 30 pallets a day, this meant a lot of extra time and walking.

Swissmill thus saves up to 1.5 hours a day, which in practice means that the investment in the system for securing products on the pallet using hot melt adhesive paid for itself within a few months.

You can see detailed footage from the production in the attached video.

Source: Robatech AG