To submit a news item for inclusion, please contact Suzanne Christiansen at suzanne@bellpublishing.com or Maddy Barron at maddy@bellpublishing.com.

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• Don’t miss out!
• Packaging machine manufacturer Schubert showcases its solutions portfolio

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The two-day event offers both exhibitors and visitors a unique opportunity to learn about and discuss the latest innovative automation and robotic solutions. It is organised by the British Automation and Robot Association (BARA) and Automate UK (formerly the PPMA). This umbrella organisation represents over 600 member companies in the UK processing and packaging machine industry. Mark Stepney, Managing Director of Schubert UK, is the Vice Chairman of both BARA and Automate UK. Together with his team, he is working to establish Automation UK as one of the most important UK industry trade fairs. As an exhibitor this year, the packaging machine experts are looking forward to showcasing the tog.519 cobot in action to their customers, potential customers and visitors. Mark Stepney explains: “Prevailing economic challenges such as high-cost pressures on companies and a shortage of skilled labour cannot be solved overnight. But they can be addressed with sensible solutions. The tog.519 cobot can compensate for the lack of skilled labour and close automation gaps so that production can be made more efficient and cost-effective.”

The tog.519 cobot – master of pick & place applications

The cobot, which Schubert will be demonstrating live at Automation UK, is designed for high-performance pick & place applications: At speeds of up to 90 cycles per minute, the tog.519 picks various unsorted products – for example, cereal bars in the food sector, or pumps, bottles and lids in the cosmetics sector – from a crate or conveyor belt and places them in any desired destination and/or packing configuration. The system can achieve this thanks to AI-supported image processing developed in-house by Schubert. It recognises products as it picks them up as well as the environment in which they are to be placed. The cobot was developed to automate the feeding process for packaging machines, which is still often handled manually. Processes such as placing products from a crate onto a conveyor belt, separating, correctly orienting or sorting them are very complex and could rarely be solved cost-effectively by machine – especially when a wide range of product formats have to be processed. The cobot can also be used at different and constantly changing points in production, thereby closing automation gaps. It is even possible to set up a complete production line by combining multiple tog.519 cobots. Overall, the tog.519 cobot excels with a high degree of speed, flexibility, and simplicity, and has the potential to elevate consumer goods packaging processes to the next level of automation.

Top-loading packaging machines for a wide range of consumer goods

In addition to the live cobot demonstration, visitors to the fair will also have an opportunity to find out more about Schubert’s wide range of packaging solutions for consumer goods from the experts at Automation UK. Mark Stepney adds: “Every customer is different and faces very unique challenges. Whether we are talking about pick & place, packaging into flowpacks or cartoning a wide variety of products and formats – customers benefit from our many years of consulting expertise and our state-of-the-art machine technologies. We offer customised packaging solutions that are precisely geared to the respective customer’s needs. And we never lose sight of sustainability: Our flexible, modular, and easily convertible packaging solutions can process both conventional and fully recyclable packaging.”

Support for customers from the pharmaceutical sector

Along with information on the latest packaging solutions, Mark Stepney and his team also have another new development to announce: Schubert UK, together with Schubert-Pharma, will now be supporting customers from the pharmaceutical sector locally in the UK and Ireland, in addition to customers from the consumer goods sector. Customers in the UK can now benefit from advice on Schubert’s top-loading packaging processes designed to ensure high-quality, pharma-compliant packaging – for vials, ampoules, syringes, medical devices and combination products. Mark Stepney concludes: “We are delighted that we have been able to expand our portfolio and are looking forward to answering all the questions that visitors to the exhibition may have.”

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To submit a news item for inclusion, please contact Suzanne Christiansen at suzanne@bellpublishing.com or Maddy Barron at maddy@bellpublishing.com.

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For the Schubert family business, employees are a top priority. They are not only decisive for the innovation leader’s long-term success, but they also shape the company as a whole. Respectful interaction, honesty and team spirit are important values that not only exist on paper, but that are lived every day. Marcel Kiessling, managing director of Gerhard Schubert GmbH, explains: “It is key to our philosophy and identity that we not only expect loyalty from our employees, but that we ourselves find unbureaucratic solutions when employees want or need to change positions. We are delighted that Johannes Schubert is taking over as head of sales at Gerhard Schubert and that Martin Sauter, who is relinquishing this position for health reasons, will remain with the company.”

Head of sales: additional responsibility within the Schubert Group

Johannes Schubert, grandson of company founder Gerhard Schubert and Gerald Schubert’s son, has held many interesting positions despite his young age. He initially trained as an industrial mechanic at the Crailsheim headquarters before working as a project manager in sales after his apprenticeship and taking on responsibility for several major international projects. A two-year overseas assignment at Schubert’s subsidiary in Charlotte, North Carolina, also contributed to his wide-ranging experience. Back in Germany, as Product Manager, he played a key role in the development of the successful Flowmodul for packaging products into flowpacks and ensured a smooth market launch.

In mid-2021, Johannes Schubert joined Schubert Packaging Systems as managing director and has since also been responsible for sales at Schubert-Turnkey and Schubert-Pharma. With immediate effect, he is taking on his new additional role of head of sales at Gerhard Schubert GmbH and will be appointed an authorised signatory in this function. Johannes Schubert on his new position: “As always, when I have completed a change of position within the Schubert Group, I look forward to my new responsibilities with enthusiasm. In my new role as head of sales, I will continue to consistently drive forward our position as market and technology leader. That being said, I have big shoes to fill. Martin Sauter has done an outstanding job.”

Martin Sauter: Move to Schubert Packaging Systems

Martin Sauter also looks back on a professional background in various positions of responsibility. From 2000 to 2011, the trained wholesale and foreign trade specialist worked in sales at Schubert subsidiary International Packaging Systems GmbH, now Schubert Packaging Systems GmbH, including as sales manager from 2005 to 2011. Since June 2018, he has held the position of head of sales for Gerhard Schubert GmbH, which he is now relinquishing for health reasons. On 19 March this year, he moved to Schubert Packaging Systems, where he works as a turnkey sales representative. Martin Sauter on the change: “I put my heart and soul into my previous position. But sometimes life forces you to make a slight change of direction. I am very grateful for the opportunity to continue working at Schubert. I am looking forward to my new challenges and will carry them out with just as much passion as in the past.”

Managing director Marcel Kiessling on the organisational change: “We would like to thank Martin Sauter for six successful years as head of Sales, during which he made a significant contribution to the growth of the Schubert Group with great commitment and enthusiasm. We wish him the best of health and are delighted that he will continue working with us. As head of sales at Gerhard Schubert GmbH and as a representative of the Schubert family’s third generation, Johannes Schubert is taking on additional responsibility for the ongoing successful development of the Schubert Group. We wish him every success and, of course, lots of fun in this new role!”

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The new Automation UK exhibition is organised by BARA (British Association of Robotics and Automation) and the PPMA (Processing and Packaging Machine Association), the umbrella organisation representing over 550 member companies in the processing and packaging machinery industry in the UK. Mark Stepney, managing director of Schubert UK, is BARA’s vice chairman and was elected to the PPMA Board three years ago. Since then, he and his team at Schubert have been working towards the Automation UK event and he explains: “Automation and robotics are among the key technologies that are successfully driving the UK economy into the future. The widespread shortage of skilled workers and recurring supply bottlenecks are currently posing major challenges for companies. We can only meet these challenges with innovations that automate production and make it more efficient, leaner and more cost-effective.” 

Stepney sees the Automation UK exhibition as an ideal opportunity for companies to get up close and personal with today’s cutting-edge technologies: “With many exciting live demonstrations, compelling information and in-depth consulting, the exhibitors are all committed to giving visitors first-hand insight and impressions of the latest automation and robotics technologies. Of course, it is essential that companies find out what the various applications can do for their production processes before they consider investing.” 

Highlights: the tog.519 cobot, a compact bar packer with an all-new infeed, Box Motion sealing and Schubert’s “Packaging Perspectives” service 

Schubert has some big news to share, especially in terms of automation. The tog.519 cobot is now ready for series production and is already proving its worth in the baked goods and cosmetics industries. Although the innovation is primarily targeted at solving the automation gap at the packaging machine’s infeed, it can also be deployed very flexibly at various other points in production. Mark Stepney explains: “Machine infeed is often handled manually, because processes such as picking products from a crate or a belt, sorting and separating them, orienting them correctly and placing them into a carton, for instance, are complex and have been virtually impossible to automate cost-effectively. This all changes with the cobot: Using pick & place technology, it can bin pick unsorted lightweight products or packaging materials and reliably place them into any conceivable target destination – at up to 90 cycles per minute.” 

The TLM Power Compact bar packer with its all-new infeed – in the smallest of spaces 

The experts from Schubert will also be providing information on the bar packer with the new TLM Comfort Feeder and A6 erector, as well as the new Box Motion unit on the flowpacker – with the aid of animation and videos. The TLM Comfort Feeder is a new, extremely compact solution for automating the feeding of carton blanks to the packaging machine. Until now, machine operators have had to react very quickly to avoid unnecessary stops when the blank holding magazines run empty. Now all it takes is to simply place the entire pallet with the blank sheets into the machine. An F4 robot then pulls blanks one by one directly from a sheet of multiple (still attached) blanks and feeds them into the erecting process at a speed of 60 cycles per minute. The new A6 erector then pulls each blank individually from the bottom of a buffer and transports it past the gluing unit to a folding device. There, a forming mandrel pushes the blank through the folding frame, erecting it, and then places the erected carton onto the transport system. The combination of a new type of sheet infeed, high erecting capacity and loading and closing – all in an extremely compact space – offers customers an exceptionally advantageous machine concept called TLM Power Compact. With the TLM Comfort Feeder, the blank sheet can be optimised even further to maximise packaging material utilisation – saving material, resources and costs. 

Box Motion cross-sealing 

Schubert recently expanded its portfolio in the area of sealing technology for its flowpacker with Box Motion: In addition to heat sealing technology with rotating sealing jaws, ultrasonic sealing with firmly closing sealing jaws can now also be used for cross-sealing. This opens up a whole range of advantages for packaging into flowpacks. For example, Box Motion enables a very high-quality seam seal as well as the processing of especially thick high-barrier films and monofilms. Since the Box Motion unit is also very easy to change, it gives manufacturers who use different flow-wrapping films even more flexibility and future-proofing. 

In addition to the latest information on state-of-the-art packaging solutions, visitors to the Automation UK exhibition will also benefit from the wide-ranging consulting expertise of the entire Schubert team. Visitors to the stand will also be made aware of the new Packaging Perspectives service which was created as part of Schubert’s Mission Blue Sustainability Strategy: With comprehensive consulting, packaging development and research, Schubert is actively supporting its customers on their journey towards a more sustainable future. The Schubert experts will also be pleased to answer questions on all other topics relating to product packaging. Mark Stepney sums it up as follows: “When it comes to exceptionally flexible automation, more efficient processes, reducing waste or achieving more sustainability in packaging – we are committed to serving manufacturing companies in the UK with all our expertise and experience. We are looking forward to many exciting encounters and discussions at the exhibition.”

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To submit a news item for inclusion, please contact Suzanne Christiansen at suzanne@bellpublishing.com or Maddy Barron at maddy@bellpublishing.com.

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