Swiss packaging equipment OEM Rotzinger, a pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food and beverage machinery manufacturer, and CoreTigo, a provider of industrial wireless automation, were at interpack last month demonstrating an interesting controls-based collaboration. CoreTigo’s IO-Link Wireless products and technology have been integrated into Rotzinger’s advanced packaging machinery, resulting in new and advanced capabilities that are driving maximum flexibility, throughput, and sustainability.
“We are delighted to partner with CoreTigo and to integrate their IO-Link Wireless products and technology into our advanced packaging machinery,” says Andreas Graf, Rotzinger PharmaPack CEO. “This partnership has allowed us to provide our customers with even more advanced capabilities and benefits, resulting in adaptivity, increased productivity, and sustainability.”
Rotzinger says its mission is to continuously optimize product flow for its customers, along with offering first-class solutions, services, and software. The machine builder was asked by a leading food manufacturer to develop an adaptive secondary food packaging machine that meets very high demands of throughput, along with the ability to support multiple package and product variations, all on a single machine. 
Automatic changeover is done on the go, enabling full agility and flexibility.
The machine is based on a multi-carrier smart conveyer system, often called linear track system, composed of independently moving shuttles or carriers. In this case, the application required performing actions on products while in constant, high-speed motion. Cables were not a possible option for such a complex and high-speed task, nor were conventional wireless solutions. By using CoreTigo’s IO-Link Wireless products—which were designed specifically for wireless control and monitoring in factory automation—Rotzinger can now wirelessly control grippers that are mounted on the shuttles/carriers without needing additional external robots, cables, or other types of equipment.
This innovative machine design results in reduced changeover time, machine footprint reduction, maximum capacity, and full flexibility to support multiple product and package types. These factors ultimately add up to result in greater sustainability, as less energy, space, and parts need to be used within the machine. The total number of machines necessary is thus lowered as well, since this allows for one machine to handle various products and package designs.
This adaptive equipment with linear track system from Rotzinger was designed for a food manufacturer who wanted a single machine to accomplish a lot of different tasks.
“Rotzinger is a leading company in the packaging machinery industry, and we are proud to have our IO-Link Wireless technology be part of their innovative machinery,” adds Eran Zigman, CoreTigo CEO. “The collaboration between CoreTigo and Rotzinger is a perfect example of how technology can be leveraged to meet the evolving needs of the industry.”
Partnerships and developments such as this one demonstrated by Rotzinger and CoreTigo are creating a fully connected ecosystem that enables real-time control and monitoring at any stage of the manufacturing process, the companies say. Machines and production lines are enabled with more flexibility and an optimized design to improve operational efficiency and productivity. Such a packaging machine with IO-Link Wireless is breaking barriers that exist today with machine communication, and enabling solutions and designs that were not possible before, CoreTigo summarizes. PW
