Mike Abare, Magnum Systems technical sales manager, and Sam Anderson, a Magnum applications engineer, reveal the eye-opening truths about packaging powders, pellets and flakes in this myth-busting episode. They debunk common misconceptions surrounding flowability, moisture sensitivity, static charge, and handling techniques. Tune in and separate fact from fiction in the world of packaging these unique materials and their fillers.
Transcript
Mike Abare Show Intro:
Welcome to Magnum Systems Podcast, where we'll aim to dive deep into the world of: “A” for automate, “I” for integrate, “M” for manufacture. I'm your host, Mike Abare, and I'll be bringing you expert interviews, thought-provoking discussions, and real-world case studies that shed light on the latest trends and developments of systems integration. Whether you're a seasoned professional who's seen it all, or just curious about manufacturers who are revolutionizing their operations, this podcast is your one source resource. So, sit back, relax as we aim to cover all the challenges, automation and integration is solving today. Let's do this.
Welcome everyone. Today I have the pleasure of having Sam Anderson join us on today's show.
Welcome, Sam.
Sam Anderson:
Good afternoon,
Mike Abare:
Sam. Can you take a moment to share your background with the audience, what your work history is and what you did prior to coming to work for Magnum.
Sam Anderson:
So, I got my mechanical engineering degree at Kansas State University.
Mike Abare:
Go Wildcats!
Sam Anderson:
That's right. Out of school I worked in an equipment manufacturing department within a company who provides food packaging equipment worldwide. So, the transition to Magnum Systems was kind of seamless from a packaging standpoint.
Mike Abare:
Terrific, Terrific. So today we're gonna focus on some of the packaging myths that exist out in the industry, specifically packaging myths around powders, pellets and flakes. In my tenure in this industry, I've heard many misconceptions about what packaging machines and packaging systems can do. Today, let's just talk about those and take some of those myths and misconceptions apart, if you're good with that.
Sam Anderson:
Yeah, let's do it.
Mike Abare:
Great, great. So, here's one of the first myths right out of the gates. Equipment manufacturers are experts and have all the answers.
Sam Anderson:
While we do have a lot of experience in systems integration and our own equipment that we manufacture, there's a lot of unknown variables that we just can't foresee. So, we really truly need to have a good discovery phase and understand the customer's full process and really what they do like about it, what they don't like about it, where they can improve, and ultimately where we can provide value that's added. Cause at the end of the day, that's what we're here for.
Mike Abare:
So we also hear this that, you know, customers have multiple ingredients and they want one packaging machine to handle all of their ingredients, or they think there is one machine out there on the industry that can do all ingredients. Can you expand on that myth?
Sam Anderson:
Yeah. A lot of fillers, they're designed to work with specific types of products. A lot of products have different characteristics. Sometimes they're free flowing, sometimes they're hard to move, so every product's going to flow differently and a specific filler really needs to be matched to that product's specific characteristics, whether that's a mechanical means of moving the product or pneumatic. So, you know, mechanical, think vibratory, think of screw or pneumatic, the use of air.
Mike Abare:
So what about this myth? Not only do, do we see bags being packaged, but also boxes. One machine should be able to do both bags and boxes. Is there any validity to that statement?
Sam Anderson:
While that is somewhat true, that's, it is a myth because not one machine's going to be able to fill every kind of container for the same reasons you're not going to fill a juice glass with a fire hose or a pool with a straw. One machine may be able to fill all your products, but it won't be able to fill them all efficiently, whether that be a varied rate or throughput or a varied accuracy. And ultimately our customers are going to really want to know what kind of a rate can we meet, how many bags per minute, how many pounds per minute? And then ultimately, they want high accuracy within their containers because their material costs them money.
Mike Abare:
Speaking of accuracy, that happens to be one of the next questions is customers, you know, have a certain level of accuracy they want on, on their equipment. And you had just mentioned because of high ingredient cost, you know, a lot of customers have this mindset of what we hear is, “Gee, it was set up, it was calibrated. Shouldn't it be able to hold its accuracy over the life of this product?”
Sam Anderson:
Over the life of the product? No, it's going to need some upkeep for sure. There's outside forces that are going to, you know, impact the effectiveness of them. Electrical equipment is susceptible to its environment, whether it be dust, water intrusion or unintended shock operators. People in the plant, you know, they're, they're going to make mistakes. They might run into a structure with a forklift and that structure may be tied into this load cell, that's going to be an unexpected shock, which ultimately could lead to potential failure. So, it, it's going to be expected that you're going to need to, you know, upkeep and potentially replace some of this equipment sometimes.
Mike Abare:
So let's step into the realm of automation. I mean, a lot of customers are manually packaging their product right now. Gee, if I automate things, it's going to solve all of my problems. Can you expand on that statement?
Sam Anderson:
Well, that would be great. While automation can solve a lot of problems from personal fatigue workman's morale, maybe a workman comp claim, it just opens the door for a whole new workforce. A customer may want to automate the palletizing of the bags at the end of their system. Instead of having an operator standing there constantly picking up say 50-pound bags, bending over and putting them on a pallet all day every day. It's strenuous on the body, which is a great solution. But then they also need to have the foresight to think of, you know, the robot's not going to be perfect forever, so it's going to have to have some upkeep throughout the life of its service. So, they need to kind of take that into account and plan for that.
Mike Abare:
So it sounds like automation will solve perhaps one set of problems, but it may introduce some other challenges as well. Are those challenges something that's easily overcome or those challenges that have a lot of cost to it? So how would I, I guess what I'm driving to, how would I evaluate whether automating a packaging system is really right for me?
Sam Anderson:
The way I look at it is automating the packaging system is really going to increase your throughput. So if that is your goal and you can justify spending some of the resources elsewhere on maybe, you know, upkeep of the robots, yeah, that could be a very good solution for you. But if you're not concerned with throughput and you're fine with the rate you're working at, then you know, you may have to stick with the manual side of things.
Mike Abare:
So, let's get down into the weeds for a moment, Sam. Certainly there are a lot of different types of packaging machines and specifically let's talk about air packers and valve packers today just to name a couple of them. There's a myth out there that air packers will make too much dust
Sam Anderson:
While by their nature they are moving the product with air and getting it airborne. If we can contain the, the, the movement of that material, then it won't create dust outside of your package or the packaging machine itself. You know, a lot of times we will request that the customer send us their product to test for sure, and then second off, the bags that they're going to package into. So we can design the fill spout around that to capture any dust. Cause if the fill spout isn’t sized correctly for the bag itself, then you're going to have some gaps around that and you're going to have just fugitive dust just leaking out everywhere.
Mike Abare:
So even with the right valve or the right packaging machine, is a packaging system 100% dust free?
Sam Anderson:
No, I think that's an unreasonable expectation.
Mike Abare:
And can you expand on that? I know you kind of touched on it, but just can you put that to a little bit more of a consolidated statement?
Sam Anderson:
So, while we will design our equipment to minimize as much dust as we can, dust mitigation, we got, you know, dust collection, we've got dust pickup ports on a lot of our packaging equipment. To say that it's a hundred percent dust free is very misleading.
Mike Abare:
So what about valve bag auger packers, I mean, they look like a great product. They look like they'll be terrific for my specific ingredient, what are some of the myths about the valve bag packers, specifically with the augers that I should be aware of?
Sam Anderson:
The biggest thing would probably be dependent upon your material. If you need a really high degree of accuracy, then it's probably not for you. Weigh accuracy is a big problem with them as well as the problems with the product control. So ultimately the material's going to keep flowing out of the fill spout to some extent. So if your material is very expensive to you we would probably try to find a different solution.
Mike Abare:
So, there's this other myth out there that Magnum Systems application engineers are just darn good looking. Can you help me understand that myth?
Sam Anderson:
Well, sometimes myths are truly legends.
Mike Abare:
Nice, nice. So as we try to wind down here today, Sam, first of all, thank you for coming and sharing. Is there anything else that we haven't covered specifically about packaging this, that, that you'd want to expand or share about today?
Sam Anderson:
When I got into this industry, what really caught my eye was the use of robots. I mean, I thought that was so cool and I kind of would share that with some people. Like, hey, I'm working with this company and, you know, we integrate robotics into our systems. I've heard it from other people, but specifically my wife, she brings it up a lot. She's like, oh, you guys are just taking jobs away from people. And when you could definitely look at it that way. It's also on the other side of the coin, the use of robots is also creating a ton of different jobs, more skilled technical labor as opposed to just manual labor. We incorporate robotic bag placing onto our fill spouts on our bag fillers, and then we also incorporate robotic bag palletizing at the end of the line.
So you could either have one human repeatedly day in and day out putting bags on the fillers, or, you know, at the end of the line, palletizing bags manually. You could replace each of those with one robot. And that requires a whole company of robot manufacturers. You've got robotic programming, coding, you've got to have somebody that can install it properly, who can set it up, and then throughout the life of the robot you need a service technician. So all of that kind of replaces that one person in a sense. So, I try to, explain that to my wife and to me it's a lot cooler to have a lot of, you know, technical skilled employees than just manual labor. While manual labor is still very important.
Mike Abare:
We've been seeking automation since the industrial revolution. So robots are really just the next step in the process of revolutionizing where manufacturing goes today. So, Sam, thank you for coming on. Once again, just want to let you know that there are a lot of myths out there when it comes to packaging systems and, and most of those myths have some hint of validity. But do us a favor, call Magnum Systems and ask us about those myths and we'll lay those to rest. Thanks again.
Sam Anderson:
Absolutely. Thank you.
And that's a wrap for this episode of AIM. Thanks for listening and thanks for joining us today. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about the topic we discussed today, feel free to reach out to us on our website or social media channels so you never miss an episode packed with valuable insights. Please join us next time as we continue to explore the ever-evolving landscape of system integration. Until then, keep aiming for success. This is Mike signing off. Good day.
