Growmark Invests in Next Generation Bagging Technology
GROWMARK, the Bloomington Illinois based regional cooperative provider of agricultural products, has reduced bag handling, labor, bag costs and bag SKU numbers while improving productivity with the use of Hamer’s next generation form, fill and seal technology. GROWMARK was looking for automated bagging technology to improve packaging efficiencies on their line of commercial fertilizer products. Their initial research led them to review automated bag placing technology for pre-made bags, which, in turn led them to Hamer Automated Packaging.
Hamer and the GROWMARK team analyzed packaging line goals and recommended GROWMARK look at automated form, fill and seal technology along with their review of bag placing equipment. By utilizing Hamer’s new Model 2090 form, fill and seal machine equipped with a large format direct thermal transfer printer developed by ITW Norwood. GROWMARK prints their various fertilizer formulations right on the bag as it’s being produced, eliminating cost, storage and labor associated with using pre-made bags every time a new material is run.
In the fall of 2010 GROWMARK installed a fully automated bagging line featuring Hamer’s Model 600NW net weigh scale, Model 2090 Form, fill and seal bagging machine, a fully integrated Fanuc Model 410iB robotic palletizing arm and a Wulftec in-line fully automatic pallet stretch wrapper. “The Hamer bagging line reduced our SKU count from over 40 bags to 3 bags, reduced bag cost and with improved scale accuracy reduced product give-away. The system was up and running 3 weeks after delivery and we continue to see product line profitability improvements:. Jim Kelly, GROWMARK