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Festooning—Cloud Packaging SolutionsPouch Packaging Machinery – Multiple Flavor MultipacksThe bandoleer of pouches is pulled from the Cloud horizontal pouch machine/accumulation conveyor by an infeed station. The infeed station feeds the bandoleer to form the control loop immediately
 before the festooning system. The infeed station consists of a pulling drum with a driven belt hold down. A belt hold down wraps the pulling drum to secure the web between. The hold down and the pulling drum are driven together. There is no slip between the web and the belts. Photoeyes monitor loop size between the infeed station and the festooning system. The festooning system operates at constant speed while the speed of the infeed station is automatically varied to maintain control loop length.  The festooning system consists of a belted infeed conveyor section, a pulling drum and a belt driven fanning section. The bandoleer is pulled through the infeed section, over the festooner's pulling drum, and down through the fanning chute into the tote. The fanning chute oscillates back and forth to lay down rows of pouches into a tote below. The tote is carried on an indexing roller conveyor which shifts the tote as layers of pouches are delivered. The programmable logic controller matches pulling speed, rate of oscillation, and tote shifting patterns so the totes are efficiently and consistently filled.When a tote is filled, the fanning chute moves to a home position. If the knife system option has been purchased the bandoleer is halted and a knife system initiates the bandoleer cut cycle. Systems without the knife option require manual cut. The full tote is then indexed out of the loading area. An empty tote is indexed into the loading area. The tail of the bandoleer is fed and draped down over the side of the tote. The festooning operation then resumes.
The above described approach ensures the following critical performance features:
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