How four mills master the sack with Koch robot systems - from manual labour to high performance and into the automated future.
When it comes to processing flours, bran and flakes, everything revolves around precision, cleanliness and speed - and one thing in particular: the bag. In recent years, Koch Robotersysteme has accompanied four leading mill customers on their way to automated bag handling: GoodMills Austria, Saalemühle Alsleben, Strobl Naturmühle and Vogtland BioMühlen.
Whether a traditional family business or a large mill - without exception, they all faced the same question: How can a sensitive natural product be packaged so efficiently that it reaches the customer intact and hygienically despite high cycle rates?
This is exactly where Koch comes into play - with sophisticated solutions that are effective wherever precision, speed and product protection are required. No matter how different the production sizes, product ranges or requirements of the mills are, a common thread runs through all projects: gentle handling of the bag, flexible palletising solutions and maximum efficiency - without compromise.
Whether ten, 25 or 50 kilos - every bag has to be filled efficiently, palletised with pinpoint accuracy, packed securely for transport and, above all, arrive at the customer undamaged.
„Automation in mills is no longer a topic for the future - it relieves employees, increases efficiency and ensures that the products reach the customer reliably,“ explains Thomas Theis, Sales Manager at Koch.
The customer
GoodMills Austria GmbH is the largest milling group in the country and part of the internationally successful GoodMills Group, which operates 25 mills in seven countries. With around 125 employees, GoodMills Austria processes grain into products of the highest quality - from classic household flour to a comprehensive organic range. As a full-service provider, the company reliably supplies bakeries, the food sector and industrial customers with conventional and organic flours as well as specialised milling products that are used for a wide range of applications.
The Saalemühle Alsleben GmbH is a traditional, owner-managed company in the heart of Germany and is one of the most modern mills in Europe. As part of the Bindewald & Gutting Mühlengruppe, the team of 220 employees processes wheat, durum and spelt into application-specific flours, semolina, speciality flours and thermal and hydrothermal products every day. With flexible production, the Saalemühle ensures that a wide variety of flours are provided efficiently, reliably and precisely for bakeries, the food trade and industrial customers.
The Caj. Strobl - Naturmühle Gesellschaft m.b.H. has been owned by the Strobl family since 1875 and has developed into one of the most important suppliers of hulling mills and soya products in Austria and Europe in over 140 years. The company specialises in processing a wide range of cereals, real and pseudo-cereals and pulses. With around 400 different products - including specialities made from old, almost forgotten types of grain - and the majority from controlled organic cultivation, Strobl offers a wide range of solutions for the food industry.
The Vogtland BioMühlen GmbH is a modern family business with a long tradition and is also part of the Bindewald & Gutting Mühlengruppe. Grain has been milled at the Plauen site since at least 1276 - today exclusively from organic farming. The owner-managed company produces the biomill brand products: organic wheat/rye and spelt flours and meals. With this blend of centuries-old experience, modern production and sustainable organic quality, Vogtland BioMühlen GmbH ensures that its products are supplied to the food processing industry reliably, carefully and with attention to detail.
The challenge
Whether spelt, rye or wholemeal - at some point, everything has to be transferred from the silos into sacks. And these sacks of ten to 50 kilos then need to be weighed, checked for metal, labelled, stacked, wrapped and re-labelled in the stack. Sounds simple, but it was hard manual labour for a long time.
Until automation, employees managed these processes with great effort - while precision, purity and high throughput rates were required at the same time. After all, the requirements of the food industry are high: fast cycle times, consistent quality and seamless hygiene standards.
For the four mills - GoodMills Austria, Saalemühle Alsleben, Strobl Naturmühle and Vogtland BioMühlen - the challenges were surprisingly similar:
- Gentle handling: Paper and valve bags must not be damaged.
- Flexible palletising: Flour sacks in different sizes have to be stacked reliably on the appropriate pallets - pallet formats, layer patterns and protective layers have to be changed quickly and precisely.
- High performance: several hundred bags per hour, on several lines simultaneously, without downtime
- Maximum hygiene and ergonomics: The systems should comply with strict food hygiene standards and at the same time reduce the physical strain on employees.
- Space optimisation: Tight palletising areas next to other production lines require maximum and efficient use of the available space.
- Process reliability: Each bag must be correctly positioned, palletised, secured and labelled - preferably fully automatically around the clock.
On the other hand, each mill had its own special features that required an individual approach. Step by step, bag by bag. „Every centimetre and every movement counts, especially with the sometimes confined spaces in often historic mill buildings and the delicate sacks - nothing can go wrong,“ explains Thomas Theis from Koch.
From optimum space utilisation and gentle bag handling to flexible palletising - a customised system was developed for each mill to make automated bag logistics efficient, precise and reliable. Where necessary, the team also relied on special upstream engineering to overcome individual challenges and customise the system precisely to the customer's requirements and objectives.
The solution
Every mill is unique - and Koch's solutions are just as individual. Step by step, bag by bag, each system was customised precisely to the spatial conditions, the product types and the production rates. Tight spaces, sensitive paper or valve bags, different pallet heights - each challenge found its own customised answer, which began in the engineering phase. Thanks to our 3D and VR simulations, all technical aspects of the systems could be taken into account in advance, so that each solution was perfectly matched to the local conditions and could be experienced even before implementation.
At first glance, the projects follow a similar principle: robot-based palletising, gentle product handling, automated empty pallet and layer pad feeding, intelligent conveyor technology, labelling with ERP connection as well as precise protective layer feeding and film wrapping. However, if you take a closer look and consider the priorities of individual customers, you will immediately recognise why each granulator tells its own success story:
Goodmills Austria: Robot bag palletising and full pallet packaging system
Full efficiency, maximum process reliability - that was the motto at GoodMills. Paper valve bags in a wide range of sizes, flour or bran, two bagging lines, space-saving conveyor technology and a Koch sliding fork gripper ensure that every bag remains intact. The system effortlessly handles large quantities on both lines - several tonnes of flour and bran roll reliably from filling onto the pallets every day. A fully automatic ring wrapper, labelling and ERP connection guarantee seamless traceability. GoodMills Austria emphasises: „Apart from the elimination of heavy manual work, we now benefit from significantly greater efficiency and maximum process reliability. Every bag remains intact, the processes are stable and our employees are noticeably relieved - this pays off every day.“
Saalemühle Alsleben: Robot palletising and load securing for two bagging lines and one big bag filling line
It's all about precision in XXL: The Kuka KR 180 PA stacks flour from 15 to kilograms made of paper or PE so precisely that every pallet looks like it's been painted. Two bagging lines, metal detectors, double bag breakage checks and automatic cardboard intermediate layers ensure that no bag, no crumb and no information is lost. Hundreds of sacks pass through the system every day - the robot stacks, secures and simultaneously relieves the team, which can now concentrate fully on quality. In this way, numerous pallets ready for dispatch are produced in the shortest possible time - stable and automated with a high bag capacity. „The robot system runs absolutely reliably - quickly, cleanly and precisely. It makes our employees“ work easier and ensures a consistently high throughput. This is a real benefit for our entire production process," says the Saalemühle team.
Strobl Naturmühle: Bag palletising flours and flakes
Compact performance, easy work - Strobl presented Koch with the challenge of tight spaces, many bag sizes and sensitive products. With specially developed sliding fork grippers, pressing belts, barcode scanners and stretch wrappers, the system significantly reduces the workload for employees. Day after day, the system pulls a steady stream of bags from filling to the finished pallet - turning hard work into a smooth process. „The system fits perfectly into the available space - that wasn't so easy. At the same time, it had to reliably handle the large number of products and different bag sizes. Thanks to the close coordination in project management, everything ran smoothly from planning to commissioning,“ praises owner and managing director Christof Strobl . This is how the transition from traditional mill buildings to modern, automated operation is successful - efficiently, safely and, of course, with Koch.
Vogtland BioMühlen: Bag palletising
More speed, less dragging - that was the motto for the Vogtlandmühle. Two lines, from single pallets to bundle pallets, metal detectors, protective arches and Koch centring frames ensure that every pallet is produced with pinpoint accuracy. The system effortlessly processes large quantities of individual and pack pallets - a prime example of how Koch perfectly combines speed and precision. The experience at Vogtland BioMühlen shows: The robot system speeds up processes, relieves the teams and ensures fast, reliable and clean production.
Conclusion
The projects at GoodMills Austria, Saalemühle Alsleben, Strobl Naturmühle and Vogtland BioMühlen impressively demonstrate that automation also pays off in the milling industry. Significantly higher throughput rates, noticeable relief for employees, consistently high product quality and, above all, a new ease in bag handling - each system masters different bag sizes, pallet patterns and tight spaces with flying colours.
„With Koch, your automation becomes a recipe for success,“ emphasises Sales Manager Thomas Theis. And indeed: bag by bag, pallet by pallet, project by project, it becomes clear how intelligent technology and well thought-out engineering make everyday life in the mills easier - efficiently, reliably and future-proof.
