A not so long time ago in a state not too far, far away...
One company had the courage to stand up against the tyranny of using two times the hot melt needed for any packaging application.
This new hero emerged and revolutionized their hot melt application process while saving big money on adhesives, spare parts and downtime.
Okay, so Mountain View Packaging's move from a standard hot melt line to an electric dotting application may not be the stuff of a Blockbuster Motion Picture, but their experience is worth exploring if you are considering moving to hot melt stitching or dotting.
The Goal of Hot Melt Stitching and Dotting
Mountain View Packaging was fed up with down time on their adhesive lines. Mountain View calculated that it lost an average of 3½ hours per week on each line due to downtime for things like:
- The need to clean or change clogged nozzles not dispensing glue or dispensing partial patterns on the cartons.
- Start-ups after weekend where the pneumatically activated guns randomly wouldn't fire at the beginning of the run.
- Pneumatic gun failure, due to either a leaky seal binding the needle or a sticking solenoid valve, resulting in the module not cycling and boxes not being glued.
Any of these sound familiar? Well, they are now a little more than a bad memory for Mountain View, see how they did it.
Making the Switch to Hot Melt Dotting
After extensive research of the market, Mountain View Packaging looked to Tesla Go's all-electric hot melt applicators to help solve their issues.
See how much you can save with hot melt dotting in under 60 seconds
Equipment experts met with Mountain View to identify the components needed to upgrade their existing lines with the Tesla Go applicators. A huge advantage of this system for Mountain View was that they could keep most of their existing equipment including: their warming tanks and all of their hoses.
Once the equipment order was fulfilled, the implementation team visited Mountain View for installation. The change out would prove extremely quick and easy. Once the existing air lines were removed and capped off, it took less than an hour to install each system.
- Tesla Go Applicators were swapped out for the previous application heads.
- A Dot Box was added to control the dot pattern.
- A Purge Box was added to allow the applicators to be manually purged.
The Results
66% Reduction In Glue Mountain View Packaging has reduced their adhesive usage from three cases to one case of adhesive per day.
Spare Part $ Savings The company also expects a reduction in spare parts due to the one billion cycle life of the tesla go electric guns.
Downtime There have been a significant reduction in downtime with the new dotting system. Since production began with dotted beads, no stoppages have been caused by the new hot melt gluing applicators, and the system hasn't required maintenance.
Adhesive Hold & Mess The company no longer experiences squeeze-out and mess as the line is stopped for jams, and they've had a drop in pop-open cartons. Plus, they had no carton failures with the reduced amount of glue. Cartons still have great fiber tear, and there are no reports of carton failures during shipping logistics.
The Savings is in the Space Between Mountain View cut its adhesive costs and was able to reinvest some of those savings by moving from an EVA to a premium, cleaner running (more expensive) Metallocene hot melt. Costs will be less on the longer-life, increased-mileage Metallocene vs. the EVA because Metallocene will reduce charring in the system, making it easier to clean any adhesive that might get onto the packaging line.
Get Started With Hot Melt Dotting
Hotmelt.com offers a seamless, cost effective and sometimes even free way to upgrade your existing equipment to a hot melt dotting system. We offer a flat upgrade price per hot melt line to make the changeover simple and transparent.
We also understand that down time = loss revenue. That is why we guarantee we can change your hot melt line over to a dot pattern in 3 hours of less.