Packaging machines for Kolkata

Bundled, not boxed

A great deal of what moves here has never seen a carton. Jute, rods, pipe, castings, sacks and bales are tied, and the tie is the packaging.

Here the strap is carrying weight, not just keeping a shape, so which strap you buy matters more than which machine applies it. Its breaking strength comes from its width and gauge, and sooner or later a heavy jute or pipe bundle exposes whichever reel in the godown is the weakest.

Where bundles are moved with a hook — which in this belt they routinely are — film buys nothing, because a hook goes straight through it. Strap and a protected corner are the honest answer.

When a bundle is too heavy for anyone to put on a table, take the strapping to it — that is the work of a pneumatic strapping tool, not a bench machine.

The distribution side

The other half of this city is godowns: goods arriving in bulk, broken down and sent out again across the eastern states.

A distributor's packing problems are different from a manufacturer's:

• Half-empty cartons — these give way sooner than full ones, since a full load props the sides up from inside. Pack out the gap or move to a smaller carton.
• Reused outer cartons — a carton that has made one journey has lost much of its edge strength, and the edges carry the stack.
• Old markings — a carton with two consignees' details reaches the wrong one eventually.
• Mixed pallets — let the flimsiest carton in the load decide the film force, and add extra rotations of film, not extra pull, to keep the stack together.

Humidity, and everything it touches

This is a humid city for much of the year and it acts on every material in a packing store.

Board loses stack strength as it takes up moisture, so a carton specified for a stack will not hold that stack in August. Tape adhesive grabs poorly on a damp flap, and a seal made on a damp carton opens later.

Store board, tape and stretch film under cover and raised above the floor. Goods brought out of cold storage should warm to room temperature before they are sealed, because moisture forms inside a pack when warm and cool air are shut in together.

None of this is equipment, and all of it costs less than any machine on this site.

Old floors and no forklift

Much of this belt works in premises laid out long before pallets were normal. Floors are uneven, lanes are narrow, and loading happens on a street.

Where the floor permits, a hydraulic hand pallet truck does the bulk of the moving, and the wheels decide whether it is a help or a nuisance. Hard wheels run freely on sound concrete but bang and jolt across cracked patches; softer wheels ride out a rough surface but are heavy going up a ramp.

A phone photo of the path from store to gate, sent with the enquiry, tells us far more than any written description and lets us recommend the right truck quickly.

And if that path is badly broken, fixing the concrete is money better spent than any truck we could sell you — we will tell you so plainly.

Tea, food and the sealed pack

Tea, spice and food packing in this region is a sealing question, and the seal carries a claim about weight and date.

Most failed seals come from product caught where the jaws close. One tea leaf or a dusting of spice trapped between the layers gives a seal that seems fine at the line and then splits open in a wholesaler's godown a few weeks on.

Keep the fill level well under the seal area, and at the start of each batch tear the first pack open by hand. If the film rips, the seal is good; if the two layers peel apart neatly, it never sealed.

The sealing, vacuum and filling machines for this work are the output of PackForge Industries, a division of Fulcrum Infratech Pvt. Ltd.; the carton sealers and strappers further down the line are made in our own Faridabad works.

Buying across the country

Kolkata is a long way from Faridabad by road or rail, so the machine is packed for that trip; delivery stays free.

Keep a stock of the parts that wear at your own premises. We tell every buyer this far from our works, because over the years it does more for a machine's uptime than anything else.

Tell us the access at your premises with the enquiry — lane width, stairs, and where the vehicle can stand. In this belt that is more often the constraint than the machine itself.