In order to achieve that portions are visually appealing, i.e., centered, with uniform slice distance in a longitudinal direction and also not differing too much in a transverse direction and in particular not resting on a sealing edge of a trough, the corresponding actual arrangement of a portion is determined directly in a packaging machine by means of a camera and, if deviation from a target arrangement is too great, production parameters are changed in an upstream portion production unit, in particular a portioning belt and/or a cutting unit of a slicing machine, and/or an upstream portion delivery unit and/or an upstream package delivery unit.

Autonomously operated systems and methods of packing unbound folded laundry articles are described. A system of stacking a plurality of folded laundry articles onto a receiving surface includes two or more side-by-side parallel extendable surfaces configured to extend at least one of independently and simultaneously, at least one sensor configured to detect a presence of one or more folded laundry articles on at least one of the surfaces, and a controller in operative communication with at least one drive of the two or more surfaces and the at least one sensor. The controller is configured to extend a loading end of at least one of the surfaces out upon receiving a signal from the at least one sensor, and retract the loading end to deposit the one or more folded laundry articles atop at least one of the receiving surface and one or more previously deposited folded laundry articles.

Devices, systems, and methods for autonomously queueing a plurality of folded laundry articles in a packing queue are described. A packing system includes a packing queue platform configured to receive a folded laundry article into one of a plurality of packing queue locations disposed along a length of the platform, a double ended conveyor, one or more sensors configured to detect a packing queue location, and a controller. The double ended conveyor includes a retrieving end and a depositing end. The conveyor is configured to be mounted to a one or more fixed rails for traveling along the length of the queue platform and cantilevering the depositing end over the packing queue platform for depositing the folded laundry article onto either a surface of the packing queue platform or another previously deposited folded laundry article of the plurality of folded laundry articles.

A linear motor system includes a track and at least one movable member coupled to the track and configured to move along the track. The at least one movable member includes a first element, a second element relatively movable with respect to the first element, and at least one movement detector configured to transmit a movement signal. A processing unit is configured to calculate a movement of the movable member, the second element and/or the first element as a function of the movement signal received from the movement detector.

A linear motor system includes a track and at least one movable member coupled to the track and configured to move along the track. The at least one movable member includes a first element, a second element relatively movable with respect to the first element, and at least one movement detector configured to transmit a movement signal, wherein the movement detector comprises at least one magnet positioned at one of the first or second element, and at least one magnetometer positioned at the other of the first or the second element. The linear motor system also includes a processing unit configured to calculate a movement of the second element with respect to the first element as a function of the movement signal received from the movement detector.

Method for operating a packaging machine, in particular a form, fill and seal machine, wherein in at least one method step the packaging machine processes a film material (14) for packing a product according to at least one processing instruction, wherein the at least one processing instruction is derived from a user input via an interface device (16) of the packaging machine and wherein the interface device (16) displays an image (18) of the film material. It is proposed that in at least one method step a modification (20) of the displayed image (18) by a user input via the interface device (16) is converted to the at least one processing instruction.

The present invention provides a food packaging machine comprising a packaging material supply module, a food supply module, a filling module. The food packaging machine further comprises a hardware data processor operably connected to the packaging material supply module, operably connected to the food supply module, so operable to create a food data transaction, and operably connected to a network data processing system. The hardware data processor is operable to send the food data transaction to the network data processing system for the data transaction to be appended to a packaged food production data hash tree. The present invention further provides a system for packaging food comprising a plurality of food packaging machines as well as methods for tracking food data transactions in a food packaging machine and in a system for packaging food.

A method for quality control of a packaging system is provided. The method comprises receiving a first record of packaging quality parameter data related to a first packaging quality parameter for a package being assessed, determining a second packaging quality parameter based on said first record, requesting a second record of packaging quality parameter data related to said second packaging quality parameter, and receiving said second record.

In order to avoid a decrease of cycle frequency of a packaging machine within a packaging line caused by a previous interruption of a slicer's on-slice operation, e.g. during its loading, special residual buffers for additional buffering of portions compared to normal operation may be released by a controller shortly before the interruption. For example, non-buffer positions for portions on buffer bands may be released, or portion positions on non-buffer bands may be released.

A bagging station, comprises a base; a carousel that rotates relative to the base, the carousel including a plurality of bag holding elements; an indicator at each bag holding element that provides a status regarding a bag hanging from the bag holding element; and a bag selection system that controls the indicators to identify bags for allocating items according to a predetermined criteria about at least one of the bag or the items.