Same Printing Plates Can Now Produce Both Bags And Film

Packaging film for automated form, fill and seal lines can now be easily and economically made into ready-made bags for hand packing, thanks to an innovative new bag-making machine designed by Convex Plastics.

Known as the Convex Lapsealer, the new machine can produce both printed reel stock and converted ready made bags from the same set of printing plates for no additional cost. This provides manufacturers with large potential cost savings, enables the easy up-grading from hand-packing to automation, and quickly allows the conversion of form fill and seal film into ready made bags should a production line failure occur.

According to Convex Plastics' Technical Manager, Greg Burtenshaw, the Convex Lapsealer is also regularly used to produce both bags and film for manufacturing companies that run both automated and manual packing lines.

"For instance," he says, "we supply a large Australian manufacturer with an automated packing line in one city, and a manual packing line in another. What they ultimately get are two lots of identical-looking bags, but one lot has been made in our factory and sent to Sydney for hand packing, and the other has been produced in Melbourne on their own form, fill and seal machine."

Another advantageous application of the Convex Lapsealer is its ability to provide an entire range of branded bags which all share exactly the same look, lamination and high quality graphics - even though their varying sizes and production volumes mean that some will be automatically packed and others will be packed by hand.

Such are the potential advantages of the Convex Lapsealer that Amplas, a leading American plastic bag converting equipment manufacturer, has already purchased the rights to manufacture the machine everywhere in the world except New Zealand and Australia. Convex Plastics still retain the Australasian manufacturing rights and currently have the only machine of its kind in the region.