Case study: Turkish chocolate producer packs with new two-in-one solution

There is more to the sweet delicacies from Anatolia than just Turkish honey: Tören, the confectionery manufacturer, is also based in the southern part of the country. The company’s products are so well received by customers that the packaging process had to become faster and more efficient. To keep pace with the growing demand, Managing Director Mehmet Tören decided to purchase a packaging system from Schubert. The robot-assisted solution combines two case packers in a single line and offers the flexibility required for numerous product formats. With the newly developed automated packaging solution, Tören also saves up to 25 per cent in material.

Since it was founded in 2003, the young Anatolian company has prospered steadily—and is catching up with traditionally long-established industry giants year after year. But growth also calls for change: the more sales of the chocolate specialities increased, the more it became necessary for the packaging process to achieve the desired throughputs. Today, the company’s products are exported worldwide. And the required quantities of chocolate bars, wafers, coconut bars and chocolate creams could no longer be managed manually. In their search for an automated and highly flexible system, the management team led by company founder Mehmet Tören found what they were looking for in Germany—more precisely at Schubert’s in Crailsheim.

Automation for the packaging process

To be able to pack the chocolate wafers and bars in flowpacks quickly, efficiently, and with a high degree of flexibility for future cartons, Tören contacted Adnan Akman. The sales account manager at Schubert was given exacting requirements: Tören wanted to pack up to 1,600 products per minute.

“The reason that flexibility was so important is that Tören supplies so many different markets,” Akman explains. The processing of at least five different formats was required to satisfy all packaging requirements and customer needs. “Of course, the format changeover had to take place as quickly as possible so that the operation would not be at a standstill for too long,” adds Akman. And finally, it was also necessary to fit the packaging machine into a relatively small space in the production area.

Two systems in one for maximum flexibility

The Schubert engineers recommended taking on the challenge from two sides: on the one hand, with a complete redesign of the cartons and, and on the other, with an integrated system that includes two case packers. “To automate packaging, we discarded the previous solution of pre-glued boxes and we developed new cartons,” Akman explains. “Because the case packer is very accurate and requires only small tolerances on the cartons, we can use tighter blanks and reduce the amount of packaging material,” he adds. The two-in-one solution for the line design was primarily intended to save space and offer flexibility: Both case packers act independently of each other. During his visits to the company’s headquarters, Akman explained to the management the high level of flexibility and efficiency that the TLM line would contribute to the packaging of chocolate products. “I succeeded in convincing Mehmet, Erol and Zeki Tören of our unmatched modular machine concept,” says Akman. The new packaging machine has been in operation in Gaziantep, Anatolia, since November 2019.

Efficient with robot technology and the Transmodul

Schubert’s space-saving solution packs the products in only four machine frames and includes erecting, filling and sealing. Modern robot technology and two Transmodul lines raise efficiency to a high level. The two case packers in the TLM system are fed independently of each other by two existing flow-wrapping machines. First, the chocolate products are sorted into two grouping chains in the new line. In parallel, an F2 robot erects the boxes and places them alternately onto one of the two separate Transmodul sections. The transport robots developed by Schubert seamlessly link the individual process steps in the packaging line and ensure an efficient process. Each Transmodul section includes one grouping chain and one F2 filling robot. The transport robots bring the erected boxes to their filling station. There, the line decides whether the respective partial line is to be used further. If the associated flow-wrapping machine is at a standstill, the cartons are not filled and the Transmodul waits until products are supplied again. “This ensures that there are always boxes ready to be filled on both lines,” Akman explains.

At the end of the process is an F2 closing robot: It closes the boxes alternately from both Transmodul sections. The filled and closed boxes are then discharged. “If the filling robots ever lose a product, a vacuum monitor sounds the alarm,” Akman adds. In this case, the incompletely filled carton is sorted out to ensure flawless packaging quality. Due to process integration with the help of the Transmodul and the intelligent machine control, the entire system adjusts fully automatically to the output of the flow-wrapping machines. This ensures Tören an efficient and consistent production process.

Almost a quarter less packaging material

Prior to automation, not only did the numerous manual steps involved in packaging the Tören treats cause delays, the pre-glued boxes for manual erection were also expensive to produce. For this reason, Schubert’s packaging development team designed new cartons with tighter cuts for automated packaging. In practice, this means high resource efficiency: “We’re talking about material savings of 15 to 25 per cent on up to six million cartons a year,” highlights Akman. Tören therefore not only benefits from a quick packaging process with high performance, it also reduces environment impact with the robot-assisted solution. The Schubert solution also sets the course for many other formats and product sizes. A format changeover takes only 10 to 15 minutes, and a single employee can operate the entire system.

Winning solution leads to a subsequent order

The management in Gaziantep is very pleased with the efficiency of the solution. “Two machines in one – when I look at the system in action, I know that we made the right decision,” says Mehmet Tören. In fact, the company founder visits production practically every day and is delighted with the modern TLM machine, which fits perfectly into the manufacturing environment with its compact dimensions. Mehmet Tören’s satisfaction with the unique solution from Crailsheim is also confirmed by the plan to continue the collaboration: “We have already ordered three more machines from Schubert for packaging our products,” says Tören.

The taste of happiness

Tören promises his customers the “Taste of Happiness." The young company has only existed since 2003, but since then the promise has been kept every day: Eleven years after its foundation, production already had to be increased to satisfy the growing demand. Tören now exports products such as chocolate bars, wafers, coconut bars and chocolate cream to 50 countries. In addition to the founder Mehmet Tören, his brothers Erol and Zeki Tören are also part of the company’s management.

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