On Friday (August 25), Verbruggen Emmeloord demonstrated its latest palletizers at the BoWa onion packing plant's open-door day in the Netherlands. Verbruggen has been BoWa's palletizing partner for 29 years, delivering six machines since 1994. These can stack about 50 million positioned onion bales. Around 75 people attended the demonstration.
Rutger Verbruggen, Jozé Dignus, and Jan Boone.
Verbruggen was eager to show the onion sector what the newly installed VPM-14 palletizer could do. The VPM-14 is a fully automatic, high-capacity bag palletizer. In perfect conditions, the machine can handle 40 bags per minute. The manipulator (the rotating device that lays the bags away) is made of a lightweight composite, making it more maneuverable, stronger, and faster. The machine uses Servo technology because the machine continually performs the same operations at high speed, but high accuracy is required.
In his speech, Wouter Verbruggen, managing director, recalled their long-standing partnership with BoWa and thanked the Boone family for their trust in Verbruggen. The company has installed over 1,350 machines worldwide (in 42 countries) in various sectors, including the agro-industry. Along with bag and crate palletizers, it recently developed a third machine (VPM-ACP) for box or crate palletizing. That is in addition to the already existing machines specifically for boxes (the VPM-BL and VPM-VHV).
This new model lets Verbruggen Emmeloord tap into new markets, as staff shortages are a global problem, making the need for automation increasingly apparent. This new machine is widely used for palletizing boxes of, say, citrus, but also potatoes and onions. For some time now, one could equip the VPM-7 to VPM-14 series with a combi-manipulator for stacking both boxes and bags.
A VPM-14 type palletizer.
Several other partners attended the open-door day, too. Verbruggen Emmeloord, for example, works regularly with KV Techniek, which specializes in robots and AGVs. Also present was optical sorting machine supplier, Flikweert Vision. These machines significantly reduce the number of (scarce) hands needed on the inspection belts.
A competition was also held. Guests were asked how many bags they thought all the Verbruggen palletizers in the world stack annually. Artjan van den Berge of Handelsonderneming van den Berge won. His guess of 745 million came closest to the correct answer of 725 million bags.
About 75 people viewed the demo.
Click here to see the photo report.
For more information:
Verbruggen Emmeloord
Rutger Verbruggen
13 Bouwerskamp
8301 AE, Emmeloord, NL
Rel: +31 (0) 624 998 107
Email: r.verbruggen@verbruggen.nl
Website: www.verbruggen.nl
BoWa BV
Jozé Boone
19 Weelweg
4414 AW, Waarde, NL
Email: info@bowabv.nl