How to Increase Your Productivity with a Palletizer

You increase the automation of your production – not only an omnipresent trend that has a massive impact, especially in three-shift operation, but also a response to the major challenge in the graphic arts industry of finding well-qualified personnel. The use of a palletizer is particularly worthwhile for repetitive processes. This is because setting up the entire system at the push of a button (keyword: Zero Make Ready) ensures a more continuous production flow, more stable production, higher net output and significantly less waste.

You also increase production reliability and production speed. If you operate a saddle stitcher line without a palletizer and with one person at the system, this person is responsible for loading the sheets and unloading the finished products – with the consequence that you produce more slowly. Alternatively, you may have several people at the machine for loading and unloading – resulting in both higher costs and a higher risk of downtime.

Your operators can unload and palletize up to 15 tons of paper per shift at a saddle stitcher – all by hand. With a palletizer, you minimize the manual movement of these tonnages. Your employees will owe it to you.

You will need significantly less personnel. A calculation example shows how quickly your investment in a Solema machine pays for itself. You are using a Muller Martini saddle stitcher in three shifts with a production speed of between 8,000 and 10,000 cycles per hour, as well as a Solema MiniPluton that produces 15 bundles per minute. Before the palletizer was installed, you needed two machine operators per shift for the complete line – in other words, six machine operators per day. With 50 working weeks, this corresponds to 14,400 man hours. After commissioning the palletizer, one machine operator per shift is sufficient for the complete line – i.e. three machine operators per day. With 50 work weeks, you reduce your man hours to 7200. Depending on the number of shifts and the costs for your machine operators, you can achieve a return on investment in less than three years.