How to Overcome the Challenges of Handling Delicate Products

For manufacturers of delicate food products, such as chips, crackers, candy and frozen goods, many obstacles can stand in the way of achieving optimal efficiency. Delicate products are often difficult to handle and prone to droppage, contributing to product waste, machine stoppages and unnecessary energy consumption. By implementing decentralized, compressed-air vacuum technologies and suction cups, manufacturers can address each of these challenges while achieving improved productivity, reduced waste and enhanced energy efficiency.

Let's look at each challenge separately.

Challenge: Dropped products contribute to product waste.

Solution: Apply a firm, lasting grip with specially designed suction cups.

Secure handling starts where the mechanism touches the product. Understanding which suction cup materials and designs offer the best hold on rigid snacks or bags of chips can help manufacturers improve the handling of their products, thereby reducing droppage and expensive waste.

In bag-handling applications, such as with potato chip bags, air leakage between the suction cup and product package reduces grip strength and is a major cause of dropped products, especially in high-speed applications. To prevent dropped products, cups that form to the bag offer an effective handling solution. The added security of the grip enables manufacturers to run their lines at faster speeds without jeopardizing the integrity of their offerings.

Suction cups designed with a long, stable bellow and flexible lip mold to bag surfaces to maximize surface area coverage. This design helps reduce air leakage to compensate for hard-to-handle, flexible packages without damaging the product. Cups with flexible lips are also gentle enough to prevent product damage, preserving quality and further reducing product waste.

Suction cups constructed from a flexible silicone material are also less likely to crack, reducing parts waste as well as downtime for replacements.

Challenge: Downtime due to machine stoppages or slow downs erodes productivity.

Solution: Install durable, effective equipment that efficiently handles delicate products without constant maintenance.

The droppage of hard-to-handle, delicate products can be a source of increased downtime due to resulting machine stoppages. Manufacturers fearing product damage during a high-speed application will often run their machines at slower speeds, hindering productivity. Maintenance can be another source of inefficiency if the machinery is not properly built or equipped to meet the needs of the application.

To operate at maximum efficiency, manufacturers must be sure that they can trust their vacuum systems to deliver strong and consistent suction for a secure grip on products. One way to do this is to install a decentralized, compressed-air vacuum system.

Building a decentralized vacuum system entails the installation of small vacuum pumps or cartridges throughout the machinery as opposed to linking the points of suction to one centralized vacuum source. What results is an improved vacuum flow that reduces the risk of product droppage. In the instance that the vacuum flow to one cup does fail, the entire line is not compromised.