A compact depalletizer including a skeleton and a subassembly. Components of the skeleton are constructed of aluminum, which provides advantages over the prior art in terms of strength, rigidity, weight, and cost. The aluminum may be pretensioned or prestressed to provide these advantages. The subassembly is preferably mounted to the side of the skeleton. The compact depalletizer is readily portable, and robotic elements of the compact depalletizer do not need to be reprogrammed after transport, so installation time is substantially reduced compared with prior art depalletizers.

Grouping unit and method to form groups of hygiene absorbent articles in a packaging machine; a conveyor which receives the single hygiene absorbent articles in an input station is provided, which feeds the hygiene absorbent articles along a grouping path, and releases the groups of hygiene absorbent articles in an output station; wherein the conveyor has a belt which is closed so as to form a ring, is wound around at least two pulleys, and supports a plurality of blades, which extend perpendicular to the belt and delimit, between one another, respective pockets, which are each designed to hold a corresponding hygiene absorbent article; an active braking device is provided, which is arranged at the input station so as to cooperate with a pocket arranged in the input station to slow down the movement with which a corresponding hygiene absorbent article enters the pocket.

A method for feeding products of the tobacco industry, particularly snus, from a production machine to a packaging machine, includes making the products advance along an advancement direction; and feeding to the packaging machine groups of products(S) having a predetermined number of products; wherein this feeding of groups of products includes: in a position for receiving the products, placing the products inside containers that are brought to the receiving position one after another, by depositing a predetermined number of products inside each container, so as to form, inside each container, a group of products of predetermined number; and transporting the containers containing the formed groups of products to a position for delivery of the products to the packaging machine.

A compact depalletizer including a skeleton and a subassembly. Components of the skeleton are constructed of aluminum, which provides advantages over the prior art in terms of strength, rigidity, weight, and cost. The aluminum may be pretensioned or prestressed to provide these advantages. The subassembly is preferably mounted to the side of the skeleton. The compact depalletizer is readily portable, and robotic elements of the compact depalletizer do not need to be reprogrammed after transport, so installation time is substantially reduced compared with prior art depalletizers.

Disclosed is a method for collecting at least one product from among a line of products arriving in a lined-up fashion one behind the other on a conveyor. The conveyor has a path, for conveying the products, and a conveying direction. The method uses at least one collector of at least one product. The collector includes at least one first receptacle capable of accommodating at least one product. The collector is movably mounted along the path for conveying the products in the conveying direction and in the opposite direction. The method includes at least one first step for collecting the at least one product in the at least one receptacle by moving the at least one collector over the conveyor on the conveying path and in the conveying direction.

A conveying apparatus in or for a packaging machine having at least one conveyor chain (1) which circulates in a chain running direction (5) and includes a large number of chain links (3) that are connected to one another in an articulated manner around a respective chain link axis (4) via transversely extending chain pins (2). Lamellar elements (6) that include lamellae (7) made of an elastic material, in particular a spring-elastic material, are oriented obliquely with respect to the chain running direction (5) are placed on the chain links (3), in particular interchangeably.

A conveying apparatus in or for a packaging machine having at least one conveyor chain (1) which circulates in a chain running direction (5) and includes a large number of chain links (3) that are connected to one another in an articulated manner around a respective chain link axis (4) via transversely extending chain pins (2). Lamellar elements (6) that include lamellae (7) made of an elastic material, in particular a spring-elastic material, are oriented obliquely with respect to the chain running direction (5) are placed on the chain links (3), in particular interchangeably.

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 packaging system to pack objects in boxes includes a supply station to supply objects of a purchase order batch, an insertion station to insert in a box a specific batch picked up from the supply station, a closing station to close the box, a storage unit configured to house a respective group of folded and flattened boxes, a forming apparatus configured to carry out both an automatic pick-up of a corresponding folded and flattened box from the storage unit, and also a subsequent automatic forming of the box starting from the picked-up folded and flattened box. The forming apparatus includes a first pick-up device and a second pick-up device respectively slidably mounted on the storage unit to slide along a respective linear path, the first pick-up device remaining in a shared transfer space when it moves the folded and flattened box.

A system for boxing products and method.