Early in 2010 P. J. Noyes began production on its new Bartelt-style horizontal form-fill-seal pouch machine. Manufactured by HMC Products in Rockford, Illinois, the new PLC-driven Pouchmaster can form and fill pouches ranging from 2" to 5-3/4" wide, and from 2" to 9-1/2" tall. The machine is capable of handling a variety of pre-printed, registered laminated films, and can be tooled to fill tablets, liquids and powders. It can make standup gusseted pouches, shaped pouches, and zippered pouches, all with tear notches for easy opening by the consumer.
Our current project: four one-inch tablets are inserted into a 2-1/2" square pouch, a tight fit required by the customer to enable insertion of the sample packet into a medical sampling kit. P.J. Noyes worked with the machine vendor to integrate a tablet de-duster, bowl feeder and inserter into the line, and added a check weigher to eliminate the possibility of any short-count pouches. Pouches are made at a rate of 60 per minute. Our customer is so pleased with the sharp graphics, compact format and quality of the pouches, they are now planning to sell them as a new retail SKU of the product.