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Bagging, palletising and stretch wrapping
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TMI recently opened a subsidiary in the USA, and has introduced a success case, which is the best option for bagging, palletising and stretch wrapping of powdery products.
rom Catalonia (Spain) to the rest of the world: who is TMI? Técnicas Mecánicas Ilerdenses, S.L. (TMI) was founded in Lleida, in the heart of the region of Catalonia (Spain), back in the year 2000 out from the hand of two experts in the field of the industrial machinery design, whom provided the company with all the knowledge and experience accumulated over more than 30 years working in the sector. Starting up as manufacturers of palletising systems and mainly focused on the industrial bagging sector, it did not last long before the company expanded its business towards the dosing and bagging of any kind of solids. Nowadays, TMI designs, produces and installs complete turnkey lines, offering a wide range of solutions from semiautomatic or automatic systems for the dosing, weighing and filling of bags, as well as its closing, check weighing and palletising to the final stretch wrapping of the pallets with multiple load protection options. Additionally, the lines can be equipped with centralised software for the monitoring and remote supervision of the equipment. Fruit of the company’s fast and sustained growth, TMI machines can be found operating in more than 35 countries all over the five continents, with established distributors in more than 25 countries that ensure something essential for TMI and the key to its success. We call it our “proximity concept”, meaning no less than a quality of service to the level of the equipment.
Passion for the innovation
But if something characterises TMI, it is its’ constant strive and commitment with innovation in every aspect of the chain, investing an average of five percent of its turnover in the R+D+I department. Thanks to this innovation capacity, a spread range of solutions adapted to the specific needs and criteria of the five different sectors that TMI caters (food, agro-feed, chemical & petrochemical, mining and recycling) has been developed: • Automatic and semiautomatic bagging systems for open mouth and valve bags. • Automatic bagging systems from flat or tubular film (FFS). • Big bag filling systems. • Dynamic check weighers. • High level palletising systems by means of side pushing. • High level palletising systems by means of motorized gripper. • Cartesian gantry type palletisers. • Robotic palletising cells. • Automatic turntable stretch wrappers. • Special solutions for pallet protection. 70 | July 2017 - Milling and Grain
Case of success: Complete and complex packaging line for flours and powdery products
Harinera de Tardienta (Haritasa) is located in the middle of an important wheat-producing area of Aragon, and has produced an excellent range of high-quality flours and semolina flours since 1954, becoming one of the most important flour milling groups in Spain. In 2011, Haritasa faced the challenge of modernising its factory. On one hand, they needed to change the packaging format from the classical valve bag, where the valve remained open, to a more hygienic and fully closeable open mouth bag. At the same time, the other goals were to increase the total output capacity and to get more flexibility in packaging formats, all of this, with the constraint of the reduced available space in the packaging and warehousing areas. Haritasa put their confidence on TMI, whose proposal met all of these needs. With the time, the relationship between both companies became so close that TMI turned into a technological partner rather than just a supplier.
Increase the throughput
The flourmill looked for highly reliable bagging systems, as they were attending an increasing demand in bagged products. Furthermore, the warehousing area was lacking capacity to stock large quantities of finished products so the delivery trucks were accumulating at the door of the mill, waiting for the product to be bagged to distribute. At the time of the investment, the mill was equipped with old and manual bagging systems and packed the flour in valved bags without possibility of closing the valve. In a sector that was more and more sensitive to the hygiene on the finished product, a closed bag was a requirement. So Haritasa seized to opportunity to also apply this change on bag formats. Being more flexible was also a demand, as the mill packed a large variety of different products (wheat flours, whole grain, rye, semolina, etc.) into different bag sizes and formats, ranging from five to 50kgs.
The challenge of the building
The Spanish flourmills are often very peculiar constructions, as the original flourmills of artisan production have turned, over the years, into modern factories that in many cases conserved the original building. For this reason, they do not usually have much space. Adapting the machinery that Haritasa needed for its modernisation to fit the reduced space available in the packaging hall was a challenge, but was not the only one. The packaging machines were to be installed in the third floor, whilst the space for the palletising and stretch wrapping