Novel Compact Tray Sealer from Ishida Europe

The recently released Ishida QX-500 was created in response to thorough feedback from Ishida's partners and consumers throughout the world.

This led to the creation of a compact tray sealer that fits easily into both new and current packaging lines, combines high throughput with exceptional seal quality, and aids businesses in achieving their sustainability goals.

“The QX-500 delivers a 66% increase in cycle speed, a 44% reduction in weight, a 46% reduction in size, and a 50% reduction in energy consumption. This means the new tray sealer significantly reduces waste and delivers a step change in productivity,” according to a recent Ishida press release.

To support the use of sustainable packaging, the tray sealer provides a variety of consistently high-quality sealing options, including seal only, gas flushing, MAP, stretch film, and skinpack, across a wide variety of tray designs and materials, such as plastic, board, recyclable paper film, and skinpack. It is offered with an integrated film coding system, a gas mixing system, and an integrated vacuum system. It can do up to 25 cycles per minute for seal only and up to 17 cycles per minute for MAP.

“The global food market remains extremely competitive, and companies face many challenges daily. By talking in depth with our customers and partners, we have been able to fully understand their tray-sealing requirements. The QX500 is designed to maximize yields and throughput without compromising on the product or pack quality and while minimizing environmental impact,” Tara O’Connor, Ishida Europe’s Product Manager for tray sealers, mentioned.

The new 'IntelliSeal' (patent pending technology) system from Ishida, which is integrated into the QX-500 along with its high speeds, guarantees exceptional seal integrity for a prolonged shelf life while making it simple for the end user to open. The system continuously monitors the tray sealer's sealing force to optimize sealing pressure, temperature, and cycle duration. Due to its ability to adapt to different package formats, the QX-500 can provide the highest levels of pack quality, uniformity, and integrity.

Without the use of additional manual handling equipment, a special tool change system enables tools to be changed in under 10 minutes. To guarantee the highest level of seal accuracy and spill-free product transfer, a revolutionary tray delivery and transfer system offers unmatched smooth tray and product handling properties.

Each machinery part was individually analyzed during the design phase of the QX-500 to determine its carbon footprint, and where feasible, alternative materials were used to lessen environmental impact. The QX-500 monitors its power use during production to ensure that it is operating at the most energy-efficient setting, which saves energy consumption and operating costs.

Factory space availability was another issue Ishida's investigation revealed. Therefore, the design of the QX-500 placed additional emphasis on reducing the size and weight of all significant subsystems of the tray sealer to deliver high performance with a small machine footprint. This enables businesses to realize a high ROI on frequently constrained floor space.

Early in the machine's construction, a full-size mock-up was made, which improved access inside and outside the machine as well as service routing and the execution of significant maintenance procedures.

All technology platforms for the QX-500 have been tested over a run of 17m cycles, which is the equivalent of many years of production, as long-term reliability is essential for any tray sealer operation. Every 1 million cycles, the platforms were reviewed, and they are still operating, providing ongoing data that enables further improvements to Ishida's predictive and preventative maintenance offering.

“Often development initiatives for products for an existing technology are based upon incremental improvements. The QX-500 represents a truly clean sheet approach, with a development process that involved very high expectations and features enhancements across all aspects of the machine. This very broad development approach for both new technologies and machine construction means that we can truly state that the new QX-500 is revolutionary rather than evolutionary. All the new sub-systems come together to make something greater than the sum of its parts,” O’Connor concluded.