Food packaging and processing solutions company tna made a strong showing at Pack Expo Las Vegas, with a spotlight on the ‘Perfect Pair’ – the tna robag 3e and tna auto-splice 3 combination – among other leading edge equipment on display.
PKN stopped by the stand to speak to Mukul Shukla, VP North America, who shared that Pack Expo Las Vegas had been "hugely successful" for the company, with high interest in the 'Perfect Pair'.
Word on the show floor was that tna took a large order from a leading multinational, but Shukla did not comment other than to confirm there had been many "quality enquiries".
Shukla, who has been leading the North American business for some ten years, said that customers are turning to tna for fully integrated solutions more than just individual pieces of equipment.
"tna is proud to offer a comprehensive product range, with turnkey solutions for achieving high output and minimising total cost of ownership," he said.
The company also showcased the tna intelli-flav OMS 5.1 on-machine seasoning system, the tna roflo HM 3 high-performance food conveyor system, and tna’s virtual reality capabilities through an immersive virtual factory experience, which you can see here:
Discussing the robag 3e's success in the market, divisional sales manager Steve Johnson also joined in the conversation, noting that FFS bag sealing is the company's specialty solution.
"We're pressed all the time for more output, and we engineer our products so we can get more bags per minute with a fixed number of people. We work with our clients to increase efficiency, to increase bag size in some instances, and in others to make bags smaller – there is a trend right now towards smaller bags for portion control snacks," he said.
Shukla went on to expound the merits of the 'Perfect Pair' as an ideal solution for US snack producers, delivering a "more efficient and sustainable packaging operation", with product waste levels of less than 0.1 per cent.
"We can increase production uptime by up to five per cent thanks to the new CXE integrated display controller and automatic film splicing," he said, noting that the latest software relays information from the tna checkweigher, or from the product in-seal inspection, to inform operators on the optimal weighing bucket configuration for prompt troubleshooting, significantly reducing rejects, product and material waste.
"This allows snack manufacturers to produce up to 2800 more bags per line per day with minimal downtime and only 200 millimeters added to the VFFS system footprint," he said.
With the world’s smallest VFFS footprint, the system delivers energy savings of up to 20 per cent, according to Shukla, thanks to its enhanced productivity and intuitive power saving software, which automatically shuts the system down when not in use.
