Automatic strapping machines for the Mathura Road belt

When the operator becomes the bottleneck

A semi automatic machine is limited by how fast a person can pass the strap round the load and press the pedal. That is a real limit and it arrives sooner than most people expect.

A fully automatic strapping machine removes it by putting the strap through an arch, so the load only has to be pushed into position. The gain is not the machine's cycle time on paper; it is that the cycle time no longer depends on who is on shift.

It is worth buying where the same load runs continuously for hours. It is a waste where sizes change every twenty minutes, because an arch is sized for a load range and a load that does not fit the arch does not get strapped at all.

Measure your largest and smallest load before asking for a quotation. The arch size is the decision, and it is difficult to undo.

Loading onto a service road

Where the bay opens onto a service road, the truck is standing in traffic and everybody knows it. Loading is done at speed, and speed is where loads get damaged.

The answer is staging, and it has to happen before the vehicle arrives. A consignment that is strapped, marked, counted and standing on pallets at the bay goes onto a truck in one continuous movement.

That means the strapping step cannot be the last thing that happens. If your machine is still running while the truck waits, the pack is being made in a hurry, and the hurry is what you will see in the claims.

Finish packing before the vehicle is called, not after. It sounds obvious; the loads that arrive damaged are almost always the ones packed against a waiting truck.

Dust, and a machine standing near a highway

A machine within a few metres of a highway lives in fine dust, and dust finds its way into the head of a strapping machine faster than anything else on the floor.

The visible effect is a strap that mis-feeds. The invisible one is accelerated wear on the gripper and cutter, which shows up as a machine that needs parts far sooner than the one in a clean plant across the city.

A cover over the machine when it is not running is the whole of the fix, and almost nobody does it. Where the machine runs continuously, blowing the head out at shift end does the same job.

Budget for wearing parts on a shorter cycle than the specification suggests, because the specification was not written for this location.

Older plants, older floors, and where a machine can go

Plants on this belt were often laid out decades ago, and the packing area is wherever there was room after everything else was placed.

An automatic machine needs its load to arrive and leave in a straight line. Where the space only allows a load to come in and go back out the same way, the machine will be worked around within a month and the investment is wasted.

Walk the route before you buy: where the load comes from, where it goes, and whether either can change. If neither can, a semi automatic machine placed well beats an automatic machine placed badly.

Send us a sketch of the area with the enquiry. It is worth more than the model number you had in mind.

Buying a machine that will run all day

A machine on a continuous line is bought on cost of ownership rather than price, and the honest way to compare is straps per rupee including the parts you will replace.

Ask for the wearing-parts list and their prices at the quotation stage. On a machine running all day, the parts over three years can approach the purchase price, and a buyer who has not seen that number is not comparing anything.

Prices are ex works with GST and freight separate. Within Faridabad the freight is small, and we will give you the despatch date when you ask for it.