Last week, our factory engineer Lao Zhang came back from a business trip to Southeast Asia and brought back good news: the packaging line upgrade and transformation project that we assisted a food company to complete last year finally helped them get the EU CE certification! This made me feel very emotional - three years ago, this company suffered heavy losses because its entire container of goods was returned by overseas customs due to substandard export packaging standards. Today, let's talk about how we use a thorough packaging line upgrade and transformation to help customers open up the international market.
Pain point: Why is the packaging line always stuck in the certification link?
At that time, the customer was so anxious that he was furious: "The same production line, domestic packaging is fine, why is it a wall when it comes to export?" We sent a team to the workshop for three days and found that the problems were in the following links:
Unstable sealing strength : Europe and the United States require that the pressure bearing value of packaging bags is 30% higher than the domestic standard;
Insufficient coding clarity : The production date of some batches is blurred in the humid environment of sea transportation;
Lack of material compliance : The heavy metal content of the packaging film occasionally fluctuates.
What's more difficult is that their old packaging line lacks data traceability function, and the source of the problem cannot be found every time the sampling fails. The director of the customer's workshop rubbed his hands and sighed: "This packaging line upgrade and transformation can't be delayed any longer, but we can't afford to stop production for transformation..."
Tailor-made transformation plan
In response to the customer's needs to ensure production and pass certification, our factory has formulated a phased packaging line upgrade and transformation plan:
Heart surgery-control system replacement
The original conveyor frame is retained, and the PLC controller that has been used for ten years is replaced with an intelligent module with self-test function. It is like replacing an old car with an automatic driving system, which monitors more than 20 parameters such as sealing temperature and pressure in real time, and automatically warns once the data approaches the threshold.
Fiery eyes and golden pupils - visual inspection on duty
Install high-definition industrial cameras behind the labeling machine and inkjet printer, and cooperate with our independently developed image comparison software. Now, let alone the fuzzy date, even if the inkjet code is missing a decimal point, it can be immediately found. The customer's quality inspection team leader joked: "This 'electronic supervisor' is more serious than the human eye!"
Strengthening muscles and bones - strengthening key components
Replacing ordinary cylinders with servo drive devices can increase the sealing pressure control accuracy by 60%. Especially when handling puffed food packaging, it can ensure sealing without crushing crisps. The customer gave a thumbs up during the trial production: "This is called professional packaging line upgrade and transformation!"
Smart ideas in transformation
In order to ensure that the transformation does not affect normal production, our factory played a lot of "magic":
Night assault: Take advantage of the gap between the customer's two shifts and carry out segmented construction from 1 am to 5 am;
Modular transformation: Replace components like building Lego to ensure that basic production capacity is restored before handover every morning;
Dual-line parallel test: Build a mini simulation line in the corner of the workshop to verify the stability of the new system in advance.
What makes customers most at ease is that we have added "regret medicine" to all transformation links-in case of problems during the running-in period of the new equipment, it can be switched back to the original system in 30 minutes to ensure production.
From certification nightmare to sea pass
After 45 days of packaging line upgrade and transformation, the changes are visible to the naked eye:
The product sampling pass rate jumped from 82% to 98%;
The packaging line changeover time was shortened from 2 hours to 20 minutes;
While energy consumption was reduced, production capacity increased by 15%.
At this year's spring Canton Fair, this customer signed 3 European supermarket orders in one go with CE and FDA dual certification certificates. Their foreign trade manager called and said: "Thanks to this packaging line upgrade and transformation, our containers have never been blocked by customs again!"
