Halewood International are using the Kosme range of palletiser, de-palletiser and robotic pick and place carton loading equipment for wines, spirits and speciality drinks cartons

Halewood International, an established supplier of wines, spirits and speciality drinks, are using the Kosme range of palletiser, de-palletiser and robotic pick and place carton loading equipment which includes automatic carton erector and sealing features. These machines have helped Halewood maintain 24 hour, 5 day operation over the past 12 months, to meet increased demand for their lifestyle products. Halewood was founded in 1978 and now operate from Huyton, Liverpool, where they launch an average 20 - 30 new products per annum.

Their experienced NPD team develop innovative market-led products developed for UK and international consumption, with products now exported to more than 40 countries worldwide.

The Kosme handling equipment is extremely versatile, capable of working with cylindrical and shaped containers in glass, metal or plastic covering a wide range of sizes.

Current production at Halewood involves glass bottles in capacities from 37.5cl to 1.5litres.

Pallet loaded empty containers are de-palletised with a Kosme Depack double-column unit with automatic sweep-off onto multi-laned tables which incorporate different speed settings to achieve a single container lane for the filling operation.

A Kosme integrated system is used for packaging bottles into cardboard cases, comprising a Formaplus carton erection machine, feeding a Combipack pick and place robotic unit.

This collects bottles or other containers into appropriate configurations, typically 36 bottles in a 6 x 6 pack or 3 x 12 pack format.

These are then placed into cartons, while automatic insertion of separation pads can be incorporated if required.

Carton sealing prior to palletising is achieved with an Incolpack hot melt case sealing unit as the final operation of the integrated system.

Two Kosme low level Palpack automatic palletiser machines are also used on site.

These are double-column units suitable for loading cardboard cartons, cases/ plastic crates or shrink wrapped packs onto pallets.

The machines are designed for medium/high output, first pre-forming product into appropriate layers, which are then placed onto a fixed pallet from low level.

Automatic inter-layer pad placement can also be provided if required.

As one of the largest single user sites for Kosme equipment, the Huyton plant also includes seven high performance labelling machines, helping Halewood to maintain an export production alone in excess of 500,000 cases of assorted products throughout the European Union and Iceland.