Delicato's journey to automate and optimise their packing line
Delicato needed to move away from stressful manual packing in their busiest production line
To help improve their employees' work environment, streamline production and create the ability to scale up.
Delicato is a popular producer of pastries. Their products are well known and the demand is high. But manual packing with increasing demand is stressful. For their most popular product, Delicatoboll, it was impossible to keep up the packing speed and maintain a healthy work environment.
Step 1: Robotic arms
Delicato started by introducing Stora Enso's robotic arms to pick and pack pastries into consumer packaging trays. As they bake 200,000 Delicatoboll's in one day, this made a difference for the packing employees. But the stress levels were still too high and the need to increase automation was clear.
Step 2: Packing 35,000 products into corrugated transport boxes daily
A simple automation solution was needed to pack and palletise their consumer packages into corrugated transport boxes.
The solution: A WrapAround machine
Flat sheets of corrugated board feed into the WrapAround machine, the consumer products enter, and the machine folds, wraps and glues the board around the products - Forming a transport box.
Which is then combined with labellers, conveyors and palletisers
After the WrapAround machine has done its job, a label is added to the box and they're automatically packed on pallets before they go out to retailers.
“Simply put, the WrapAround is a problem solver. The machine and the boxes it makes removes a bottleneck for us. It enables us to keep and increase the flow without our employees risking repetitive strain injury."
“We picked Stora Enso’s solution because it felt problem-free. The more automation you add, the more potential problems there can be. So, we wanted an easy-to-use equipment and that’s what we got.”
The machine has a closed system with lighting inside, making it safe for operators while being easy to view the packing process. And what's more? It is also freeing up space for Delicato. Since the WrapAround machine feeds in flat sheets, a lot of space is saved through no longer needing ready-folded boxes in storage.
Step 3: Tailor made transport boxes
However, some products still need to be packed manually. Here, Delicato used to have issues with hand-raised boxes.
Their customers wanted a box that is easier to unpack, and Delicato needed the lid to be attached firmly for lifting with a suction cup.
These combined needs were solved with a tailor made corrugated transport box designed and produced locally in Sweden by Stora Enso.
“Since Stora Enso is a corrugated packaging solutions supplier we can help with the box solution, packaging materials, design, printing, packaging automation and everything in between."
"This box is quick to raise, easy to work with, it has a display function and the lid stays on so that the boxes can be lifted and arranged onto pallets using a suction cup.”
Now, a second WrapAround machine is on its way to Delicato’s bakery, and the automation journey continues.
