The present invention relates to an apparatus for grouping containers, comprising: a first conveyor belt for transporting the containers in a first transport direction; a second conveyor belt; a container receiving device; a transfer device, which is designed to transfer at least some of the containers from the first conveyor belt to the second conveyor belt transversely to the first transport direction and to transfer at least some of the containers transferred to the second conveyor belt to the container receiving device transversely to the first transport direction; and a motor device, in particular a long stator motor device, which is designed to move the transfer device for transferring a container.

A tray sealing machine comprises a gripper device including first and second tray grippers that operate together to take up trays provided by a feed unit and transport them to a sealing station that is downstream in a production direction. A speed of the first and second tray grippers in the production direction when respectively performing a closing motion from a respective initial position toward a respective closing position can be accelerated such that the speed of the first and second tray grippers in the production direction relative to a belt speed of the feed unit during a predetermined first time interval is slower than the belt speed, and during a subsequent predetermined second time interval until the respective closing position has been reached is greater than the belt speed, so that gripper fingers on the first and second tray grippers immerse into respective position windows located between the trays.

A system for interfacing between different types of conveyor systems that comprise a first serial conveyor system using a sequence of object carriers configured to transport a continuous serial stream of objects, and a parallel conveyor system configured to simultaneously transport one or more arrays of objects. A first accumulator unit can be used to accumulate a batch of the object carriers of the first serial conveyor system. Each of the object carriers can carry an object of the continuous serial stream of objects for accumulating a batch of the objects therein. Two or more first movable trays, each configured to receive an array of the objects from the batch of objects accumulated in the first accumulator unit, can be used to transfer the received array of objects to the parallel conveyor system, and load the objects thereby carried onto grippers of the parallel conveyor system.

A food article loading system including a shuttle conveyor mounted for reciprocal movement having a first paddle belt for receiving food articles, and upper and lower drives engaging the upper and lower passes of the first paddle belt; a loading head having a second paddle belt for receiving the food articles from the first paddle belt lower pass; a slide gate for receiving groupings of food articles from the loading head; and a control for independently actuating the upper and lower drives to operate at selected speeds, to cause rotation of the first belt and the shuttle conveyor to reciprocate longitudinally to receive and retain a first predetermined number of the food articles, deposit a second predetermined number of the elongate food articles onto the second belt at a selected frequency, and selectively open the slide gate to allow groupings of food articles to fall into receptacles.

Apparatus and methods for automatically conforming a bottom support surface in a pick and place palletizer to the width of items such as cases that are supported on the surface are described. The invention defines an improved apparatus and method for automatically adjusting the width of a row support surface to conform to undersized items or items having a width when an item side is against the apron backstop that is less than the apron depth relative to the backstop.

The present invention relates to a method for transferring products (1) between a main conveyor (2) which is configured to convey products in a longitudinal direction and an accumulation surface (3) using an intermediate conveyor (4) and a pushing means (5). The method comprises acceleration of the intermediate conveyor (4) and transfer of products (1) between the intermediate conveyor (4) and the main conveyor (2) via the action of the pushing means (5), and deceleration of the intermediate conveyor (4) and transfer of products (1) between the intermediate conveyor (4) and the accumulation surface (3). The present invention also relates to a device for transferring products (1) between a main conveyor (2) which is configured to convey products in a longitudinal direction and an accumulation surface (3), enabling in particular the method according to the invention to be carried out.

A transport device including a support body having an upper part on which a plurality of articles can be arranged; an unloading device which pushes the plurality of articles arranged on the support body; a belt conveyor which transports the articles pushed out from the support body; a slider which moves the articles arranged on the support body and also moves the articles arranged on the conveyor belt, thereby separating the articles; and a lift which is disposed between the support body and the conveyor belt and which rises to a higher position than the upper surfaces of both the support body and the conveyor belt when the articles arranged on the support body and the articles arranged on the conveyor belt have been separated.

A storage station, a process for storing, and a bottle tray (5) configured for receiving a bottle layer (7) are provided. The bottle tray has an upright side wall (12), with an upper tray opening (13) and a tray bottom (15) connected to the side wall (12). The bottle tray (5) has a movable lifting bottom (18) that lies in the loaded state (5) on the tray bottom (15) and which has a plurality of passage openings (16) for a lifting device (34) for a relative lift between the side wall (12) and the lifting bottom (18). The tray bottom (15) has a perforated plate or a plurality of struts (17) located spaced apart and enclosing the passage openings (16). The struts are fastened to the side wall (12). The bottle tray (5) has a bottom centering (19) acting between the tray bottom (15) and the lifting bottom (18).

A grouping station for grouping pallets includes an inbound conveyor, which is a gravity conveyor. The grouping station includes a fixed-height pairing conveyor and a grouping conveyor with three height positions for different grouping functions.

This transport device is provided with: a support body 5 having an upper part on which a plurality of articles can be arranged; an unloading device 30 which pushes the plurality of articles 20 arranged on the support body 5; a belt conveyor 40 which transports the articles pushed out from the support body 5; a slider which moves the articles 20 arranged on the support body 5 and also moves the article 20 arranged on the conveyor belt 40, thereby separating the articles 20; and a lift 80 which is disposed between the support body 5 and the conveyor belt 40 and which rises to a higher position than the upper surfaces of both the support body 5 and the conveyor belt 40 when the articles 20 arranged on the support body 5 and the articles 20 arranged on the conveyor belt 40 have been separated.