The Line Ends Where the Box Begins: ILLIG Moves Into End-of-Line with the BFU
|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
ILLIG has expanded its thermoforming offering with the new launch of the BFU 300 and BFU 500 box packers, designed specifically to automate end-of-line packing for its RDM thermoforming lines. By bringing forming and packing equipment under one supplier, the new systems aim to reduce manual handling and production bottlenecks while giving processors a fully integrated line with single-supplier responsibility.
Both work the same way at heart. They take an erected carton and fill it by placing whole layers of nested cup and pot stacks at once, rather than picking a part at a time, at up to nine layers a minute and without slowing the forming line. The BFU 300 is the cost-effective option: round parts, a box lift, simple format tooling and easier operation. The BFU 500 adds a servo gripper, a stack support mode and tighter packing schemes, so it takes on unround parts, critical stacks and the awkward formats the 300 cannot. Think margarine tubs, shallow dessert pots, coffee capsules that have to be packed dense to make the economics work.
Either unit runs inline, coupled tightly to the line, or offline on the non-operating side, and the packer stays stationary both ways so the footprint is predictable.
“A dedicated cartoner can match the raw mechanics. What it cannot do is be the same supplier as your forming line.”
Here is the part that matters to a producer. A dedicated cartoner can match the raw mechanics. What it cannot do is be the same supplier as your forming line. The BFU is 100% ILLIG, one EasyTouch panel, one number to call when something faults at 3am. That single-supplier accountability, not the mechanism, is the real product.
And the timing makes sense. Labour is harder to find, SKU counts have grown across almost every food category, and that means more format changes and more chances for a manual packing station to become the thing that caps your real output. The bottleneck on a lot of lines was never the former. It was the end of the line.
Availability is staged: RDM and RDML now, RDK still in development. Live demos started this month at the ILLIG Technology Center, and the public reveal is Interpack 2026 in Dusseldorf, 7 to 13 May, Hall 6, Booth 6A60.
None of this makes the BFU automatically right for every producer. It comes down to the parts you run, the stacks you pack, and how much you value one supplier being answerable for the whole line. But the gap it fills was real, and for a long time it sat exactly where nobody was looking.
More Information on These Machines
BFU 300 — round parts, box lift, up to 6 layers per minute. Recommended for RDM 54K, 73K and 75K lines.
BFU 500 — round and unround parts, servo gripper, up to 9 layers per minute. Recommended for RDM 73K, 75K and 76K lines.
Read all of Illig latest news here.
Illig
01733 246761
Email
Website
