Equipment feature: A case of vertigo?
Deciding between the dizzy heights of an upright form, fill and seal machine or a flat version is quite simple: They are all easily installed by qualified engineers, and pose no problems for engineers carrying out proactive or reactive maintenance
Form, fill and seal machines can be horizontal or vertical. But what is the difference? Is one better than the other? And how do the pack styles produced differ? When talking about the differences between vertical and horizontal form fill seal (FFS) machines it’s important to clarify what is meant by these terms.
Broadly speaking, the term vertical FFS refers to equipment that produces pillow packs. From a roll of pre-printed, heat-sealable film and with the help of a forming shoulder, the vertical FFS forms a tube of film. This is then sealed vertically, by means of a heated back seal bar. A set of jaws then creates a cross seal, which becomes the seal at the top of the bag below and the bottom seal of the bag being made, and a knife located within the jaws simultaneously cuts through the web to make the tube into a bag of the desired length. While the bag is being formed, product is gravity fed into it.
However, there are variations on this theme. Vertical sachet makers, for example, produce three- and four-side seal sachets, usually across several lanes. The machines use vertical sealing plates to create side seals. Sealing jaws then seal the tops of the filled pouches while simultaneously sealing the bottoms of the next pouches, and knives separate the packs.
Then there is the stick pack maker, which is essentially a mini pillow pack machine for creating condiment portion packs. These tend to be multi-lane machines so you get exceptionally high speeds, but the main reason companies use stick packs is that they use 40% less material than sachets.
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