Everyone needs packaging: the baked goods manufacturer no more bypasses primary, secondary, and tertiary solutions than the pet food producer or cosmetics manufacturer. But that's where the commonalities end. Not only do different products roll off their production lines, but performance, space, and automation levels can also vary widely. One company dedicated to this diversity is Gerhard Schubert GmbH.
Actually, it's a good thing that some things never change: those packing products always need machines for similar basic tasks. Boxes need to be erected, products filled, tube bags sealed, and packaging closed. However, what varies greatly from one industry to another is the specific execution of these tasks: product, performance, available space, degree of automation, and packaging format often differ significantly.
This is precisely where the key to successful automation lies: in technologies that can be combined, adapted, and networked for diverse requirements. In short: in modular packaging systems. Gerhard Schubert GmbH recognised this importance early on and made modular, standardised components a cornerstone of its portfolio.
However, this is only half the truth about what became known throughout the industry as the TLM system kit. Precisely because various solutions can be implemented from this repertoire, Schubert has developed three independent product lines over the years, offering customers guidance, reflecting the diversity of TLM – and in some cases, even going beyond it.
Lines such as TLM, Lightline, and TOG are partly based on the established portfolio, but TOG specifically expands it with new units. Together, they enable manufacturers from a wide variety of industries to automate packaging processes to align as closely as possible with production needs – from customised, highly complex lines to the targeted expansion of a specific process step.
TLM: for individual, complex solutions
Modular top-loading machines started in the 1980s. From this point onwards, the company prepared the ground for today's well-known, fully robotised TLM portfolio, which allows for highly individualised solutions. Quite simply, because every manufacturer has to reconcile their own ideas and those of their customers.
„With TLM, the toploading machines, Schubert has set standards in robot-based packaging for a wide variety of consumer goods,“ emphasises Marcel Kiessling, Managing Director Sales and Service at Gerhard Schubert. The applications range from pastries to vaccination syringes.
How is this achieved? TLM system components such as pouch-filling machines, carton erectors, and pick-and-place robots provide the basis for building often highly complex packaging machines that fill products into packaging from above: hence the designation Toploading machines. The range of possible solutions is so broad that TLM machines can solve any packaging problem. The freely combinable system components such as robots, frames, control systems, and transmodules can be combined to form specific sub-machines.
Whoever electrically, pneumatically, and mechanically connects sub-machines with each other builds a TLM packaging machine. This makes it possible to implement special requirements such as multipackers, which involve several packaging processes, or lines for liquid filling, flow packing, and sealing. To ensure this remains the case in the future, Schubert has consistently further developed the TLM line. The new generation presented at interpack offers more performance in the same footprint thanks to a more rigid frame, new drive and control technology, and AI-optimised path planning for the robots.
Lightline: pre-configured for a rapid start to production
However, not every customer needs a fully integrated, complex packaging line, as enabled by the TLM modular system. Sometimes a quickly operational system or a space-saving automation cell is required. With Lightline and TOG, Schubert precisely addresses these needs, thus broadening its reach in a market that explicitly demands this flexibility. The Lightline series, initiated in 2018, allows for a quick start at low project engineering costs. The basis for this series consists of machines for easily standardisable tasks such as pick and place, flow-packing, and cartoning.
Case packing for wrap-around and tray-and-hood applications has also been recently added to this. All machines in this segment can be pre-set for specific product scenarios and cover the tasks mentioned with high efficiency. „The Lightline series offers the ideal solution for a quickly deployable system at an attractive investment cost,“ highlights Marcus Schindler, Head of Strategic Corporate Development at Gerhard Schubert.
To determine the appropriate Lightline, Schubert takes a closer look at the customer's packaging scenarios. This combination of product, packaging, packing pattern, and performance serves as the basis for configuring and constructing the right machines for this packaging scenario. Always included: the TLM modules from which the Lightline machines are created. The parameters for common packaging scenarios are already pre-set here, so customers do not have to determine them themselves. This saves time during commissioning, in some cases up to 30 percent.
This makes the range the optimal solution for anyone needing a system that can be deployed quickly without special construction effort, and who may not have the space for a comprehensive line. Schubert itself sees the Lightline series as an important step in an evolution – towards more efficient, more cost-effective production. Performance is by no means compromised: for instance, a Lightline carton packer for energy bars can handle up to 60 boxes or 480 products per minute when erecting box blanks in a single lane.
TOG: Limited to mandatory functions
To noticeably relieve human operators, companies may not even need a packaging machine that covers multiple steps. Sometimes, it is sufficient to automate just one step specifically to achieve higher performance or reduce manual tasks. For example, a robot like the TOG Cobot (short for „together") can place products into trays or onto belts faster than a human ever could. And the TOG Erecting Unit reliably erects boxes in high quantities at the push of a button. Schubert intends precisely this targeted optimisation with the TOG line, which includes high-performance single-function machines: 100 percent standardised and therefore ready for deployment in any packaging line.
The series modularises individual packaging steps without necessarily making them cognitive systems. „Currently, the TOG series comprises our TOG Cobot, a cognitive pick-and-place robot with in-house AI, and the TOG Erecting Unit box erector. Further production cells will follow,“ emphasises Ralf Schubert, managing partner.
However, the variably deployable modules do not just perform individual functions in the packaging process. Schubert has also developed them all according to the MVP approach. The „Minimum Viable Product“ stands for technology that is limited to essential functions. A unit without extras, but with high performance – and in the usual quality. Anyone using a TOG cell therefore has a solution at low initial costs, which can be put into operation quickly and easily without programming effort.
Schubert is still in the early stages with its completely new, flexible production system. TOG is intended to create an entirely new, flexible production environment in collaboration with humans. The two developments mark the start of a series that will prospectively cover further individual steps such as tray destacking, filling, and closing, and make them combinable with each other. Corresponding solutions are currently being planned.
This is for strategic reasons: demand for standardised, flexibly usable production cells is noticeably increasing and is considered key to more flexible, competitive production. This is achieved primarily through less complexity, which can quickly become a hindrance in these challenging times. German mechanical engineering in particular has a reputation for building complicated, expensive machinery – an image that Schubert consciously wants to distance itself from. Not least because customers should be able to expect the solution they actually need.
