A bi-directional carton opening system for opening cartons in left hand or right hand configuration. The system utilizes apparatus having a Y axis rail with a first X axis rail fixedly mounted thereto and a second X axis rail mounted moveably thereto. A carton is gripped by a carrier on the first X axis rail and a carrier on the second X axis rail. The carrier on one of the X axis rails is moved along the respective X axis rail while the carrier on the other X axis rail is held in place and the moveable X axis rail is moved along the Y axis to open the carton to a rectangular tubular shape.

A station for picking up and delivering shaped sheets that define box-like bodies of different types includes a magazine for the sheets and at least one handling element for at least one sheet at a time.

The magazine accommodates a plurality of mutually aligned and juxtaposed sheets and the at least one handling element includes an end bracket provided with at least one grip element and at least one assembly with arms which are articulated with respect to the bracket and are independently movable with respect to a fixed frame. The bracket can move between a first configuration of alignment with the end sheet accommodated in the magazine, in the condition where the at least one grip element is in contact with the end sheet, and a second configuration of alignment with a conveyance line of the sheets which corresponds to the delivery region.

A box transport rail 70 extending in the box transport direction Tb and a plurality of box transport shuttles 76 movably arranged on the box transport rail 70 to be movable in the box transport direction Tb, which is the movement direction of a packing box Bx, are provided. When located in the sheet feeder 81, the box transport shuttles 76 receive the sheet 9 while being apart from each other across an interval greater than the bottom sheet portion 91 of the sheet 9. During movement from the pushing unit 82 to the sealer 84, the box transport shuttle 76 arranged frontward in the box transport direction Tb is brought close to the bottom sheet portion 91 to reduce the angle of a part 93 frontward of the bottom sheet portion 91 in the box transport direction Tb relative to the bottom sheet portion 91.

A filling machine for filling packaging containers made of cardboard composite material with products, in particular liquid foods, includes a gripper that removes a packaging jacket from a magazine only partially erected in the manner of a parallelogram by a guide and at least one of two retaining elements for accommodating an outer fold edge of the partially erected packaging jacket can be move back and forth between an initial position and an end position. The cross-section of the packaging jacket accommodated by the two retaining elements is rectangular in the end position of the movable retaining element.

An automatic system is described, for orienting longitudinal flappers (FL) and transverse flappers (FT) of boxes (S), comprising: a first station for orienting the longitudinal flappers (FL) of the box (S), equipped with first handling means; a third station for orienting the transverse flappers (FT), equipped with third handling means and with a second longitudinal side abutment guide; a second station for transferring the box (S) from the first station to the third station, equipped with first longitudinal side abutment guides; and a transport plane adapted to move the box (S) from the first station to the third station through the second station.

A cartoning machine including a carton supply station (e.g., a rotary carton supply station, a linear carton supply station, a non-linear carton supply station, or the like) and a handling station operatively coupled to the carton supply station. The carton supply station provides, on a selective basis, cartons, such as carton blanks, pre-formed cartons, or the like. The carton supply station of the cartoning machine provides for movement of magazines with respect to a robot in the handling station that may have a distal end secured in a stationary and fixed location. As such, different magazines with dissimilar cartons may be moved to a picking location adjacent the robot, as dissimilar cartons are required. Further, the cartons within the magazines may be moved to a pre-determined pick-up location such that the robot is repeatably picking a carton from the pre-determine pick-up location.

An operating group for a cartoning machine is arranged to move a blank that is intended to form a carton adapted to contain one or more products, and includes a magazine suitable for housing a plurality of blanks folded in a planar manner; gripping arrangement that is configured for retaining the blank and is movable at least between a removing position in which the gripping arrangement removes the blank arranged in the magazine in a planar configuration, which is horizontal, and a delivery position in which the gripping arrangement delivers the blank arranged in a tridimensional unfolded configuration, which is vertical with respect to the planar configuration; in which the gripping arrangement is rotated around a rotation axis such as to travel along a closed loop path; the removing position from the magazine being arranged above the closed loop transfer path travelled by the gripping arrangement, such that the gripping arrangement can remove directly from the magazine said blank in the horizontal folded planar configuration.

A robot system includes: a hand that holds an article; an arm that moves the hand; and a first contacting portion with which a first foldable portion of the article is brought into contact during a first folding process that is a process of folding the first foldable portion in a state where the article is held by the hand. The hand includes: a base that is connected to the arm; and a holder that is rotatable relative to the base and holds the article by adhesion. During the first folding process, the hand and the arm fold the first foldable portion by rotating the holder while keeping the first foldable portion in contact with the first contacting portion.

A method for reducing restoring forces of package sleeves in a filling machine, where flat-folded package sleeves are removed from a magazine of the filling machine, erected to form a package sleeve forming a parallelogram in cross-section and then transferred to a transport device for transporting the upright package sleeve along a transport path. In order to enable a reduction in the restoring force adapted to the particular material of the package sleeve without increasing the cycle time for the removal and unfolding of the flat-folded package sleeve, the restoring force is reduced by temporarily increasing the internal angle between the package walls at the outer fold edges to more than 90 while the upright package sleeve is located on the transport path of the transport device. The reduction of the restoring force can be accomplished during the movement or during a standstill of the package sleeve on the transport path.

A packaging unit for packaging articles in boxes includes a mandrel, a movement device, a feeding device, a first abutment surface, and a retaining device. The mandrel is configured to accommodate at least one of said articles inside it. The movement device is configured to move said mandrel along a movement trajectory. The feeding device is configured to feed at least one blank along a feeding trajectory which intersects said movement trajectory towards said mandrel to form one of said boxes around said mandrel. The first abutment surface is defined on said mandrel as the surface of said mandrel intended to abut said blank when positioned in said movement trajectory. The retaining device is displaceable between an operating position in which said retaining device approaches said first abutment surface to retain said blank against said first abutment surface and a non-operating position in which said retaining device is spaced apart from said first abutment surface.