Issue one March 2004

W E I G H I N G B A G G I N G PA L L E T I Z I N G M AT E R I A L S H A N D L I N G L O A D S E C U R I T Y
WWW.PREMIERTECHCHRONOS.COM

A LOCAL PARTNER
WITH A GLOBAL REACH
The Premier Tech Chronos World
Dear Business Partners,
It has now been a year since Premier Tech acquired the
international operations of Chronos Richardson. In addition to
this, we are also celebrating the second anniversary of the
Richard Simon acquisition. The future of these two companies
is now part of an international operation spanning Europe, Asia
and the America with a vision of being A local partner with
a global reach.
The past year has been a challenging and rewarding period
for all of us at Premier Tech Chronos. The focus of all our
actions has been Customer Satisfaction but also re-engineering
of our business in order to remain the outstanding supplier
in our industry, in all markets and territories where we are
involved. This major action was necessary in order to deploy
the vision of our parent company, Premier Tech Packaging.
This vision has the objective of having the new Premier Tech
Chronos in close touch with its business partners and being
highly flexible and responsive to the market needs.

been carried out for strategic rather than purely commercial

reasons. Our commitment to improvements and expansion
over the past years emphasizes this strategy and we are on
track to become the worlds leading supplier of flexible
packaging solutions. All of our teammates have approached
the challenges with enthusiasm and determination to succeed.
Premier Tech Packaging has reinforced its commitment to be
the leader in all of its markets and territories with strong and
thriving bases in Canada, Germany and Thailand. This is the
continuation of the work that started 13 years ago with the
creation of our packaging group and that has seen us become
in such a short span of time an industry leader with an
unmatched product portfolio. You can be sure that while
working on the re-engineering, we keep the most important
piece of the puzzle, our customers, in the forefront of our
activities.
Thank you again for your long-standing support.

We stress at the outset that Premier Tech Packagings

acquisitions of Chronos Richardson and Richard Simon have

March | 2004 | Issue 01

In this newsletter
02
02
03
04
06
07
08

Tailored solution to bag bakery mixes

Bagging equipment for Nippon Goshei
PM5 ; Preventive maintenance
Bagging innovation for cement mixes
Fairs and shows
The worlds first automatic scale
Complete integration systems

Andr Noreau, P. Eng.

President
Premier Tech Packaging
Business Area

AUTOMATION THROUGH INNOVATION

TAILORED SOLUTION TO BAG

BAKERY MIXES

Backaldrin is a well known family

owned company in Asten, Austria.
The business is focussed on
developing and supplying bakeries
with bakery mixes and additives.
The company extended its
production capacity and thus was
in need of weighing, bagging and
palletising equiment. Bakery
mixes are in most cases and

so here powders,
creating a lot of dust
when being bagged
therefore
hardly
flowing. The task
presented to Chronos
Richardson by Backaldrin was to find a
concept,
fulfilling
European Hygiene
Standards, creating
nearly no dust during
the bagging process
and being flexible in
regard to product change not
only with the bagging line but also
with the palletiser. The palletiser
would have to identify the in-fed
bags, being different in content
and size/weight and direct them
to the respective pallet, which
also could be of different material
wood or plastic. The system
also needed to be capable of not
only filling open-mouth bags of

different sizes but also the Big

Bags. The latter should not be
equipped with its own weigher
but should be connectable to the
spouts of the bagging lines for
open-mouth bags. Finally the low
building height needed also to be
considered.
The tailored solution consisted of
the well known CHRONO-FILL
PBS 500 Bottom-up-Bagging Line
in one single-spout-version and
one as a twin-spout-version which
was selected to ensure purity of
the bakery mixes and additives
by reducing the need to clean the
machine.
Due to the alternate operation of
the spouts, this goal was
achieved. Bag sealing is effected
by a DoBoy FTS HD sealing
device. It first seals the in-liner
within the bag, afterwards folds

the upper edge twice and finally

adheres a stick-over tape. Both
bagging lines operate in parallel.
The filled and sealed bags are
transported together via one
single conveyor belt to the dual
compact palletiser, which incorporates a bag lift and two palletising
tables currently fed by one single
bag magazine. As the bags enter
the palletiser, a scanner reads the
EAN Code printed on them and
then assigns the bags to the correct
pallet. In addition to the bagging
lines, a movable Big-Bag-Line was
integrated into the solution. All
the equipment is PLC controlled.
It goes without saying that the
bagging lines meet the hygienic
standards DIN EN 1672 part 1
and 2

BAGGING EQUIPMENT FOR NIPPON GOSHEI

Chronos
Richardson
has
recently
completed a major contract to supply a
fully automatic bag and box filling line for
chemical giant Nippon Goshei.
The equipment has been installed at the
companys new 300 million Euros plastic
resin plant located near Hull, England. The
contract, which is worth over one million
Euros, was awarded to Chronos Richardson
by Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding
Company Limited, the main engineering
contractor for the project.
Nippon Goshei has pioneered the process
for producing high quality, high density
plastic resins and from its UK site it will
supply customers all across Europe. This
resin is mainly used as a high quality food
film in the rapidly expanding industry of ready
meals market. Ironically, another major
customer for the resin is also the manufacturer
of the bags used to package the product !

02 | INPACK | March 2004

Mitsui and Nippon Goshei set strict technical

and process parameters for this vital equipment
in terms of speed, accuracy, reliability and
hygiene. The bagging line includes a belt-fed,
high speed UBM weigher, automatic MK4
bag placer and heat sealer, check-weigher,
low level palletiser and shrink wrap equipment.
The bagging line is capable of filling either
20 or 25 kg bags at speeds up to 600
bags an hour. Conservative engineering and
design parameters ensure that critical
components work well below their ultimate
capability, thereby providing long term
reliability. When required, the product can be
diverted to the second line, which can
automatically fill octabins by multi-dumping
product from the weigher to achieve the
larger 550 kg target weights. The octabins
are placed automatically onto pallets and
then presented one at a time to the filling
spout. When filled, evacuated and sealed,
the box is conveyed away ready for a new
one to take its place.

All critical contact parts are constructed

from polished stainless steel to facilitate
product line changes and ensure that the
strict hygiene requirements are met. Given
the high value of the product, minimising
giveaway whilst still maintaining accurate
target weights is vital. The design features of
the UBM weigher and controller optimise
target weights and automatically compensate
for any minor changes as they occur. For
25 kg bags, accuracies of 10 g are readily
achieved.
Before installing the equipment on site,
Chronos had to demonstrate its effective
operation during in-house trials witnessed
by senior engineers from both Mitsui and
Nippon Goshei.

AUTOMATION THROUGH INNOVATION

DO YOU REACT OR PREVENT ?

A new look at performance through

preventive maintenance
The new industry buzzword seems to be
PREVENTION all across the board as more
and more companies realize the importance
of preventive maintenance on their equipment
to minimize the possibilities of downtime.
People used to call us in panic asking for
a field service representative to jump on a
plane ASAP to come in and fix the problems.
We are undoubtedly facing these types of
situations less frequently than in the past
due to the simple fact that people are doing
more maintenance on a regular basis than
before. Premier Tech Chronos, a year ago,
has initiated an innovative support and
service program called PM5 (Preventive
maintenance 5) which offers various support
options and levels through long-term partnerships with its customers. Depending on
the level of support the customers have

chosen, Premier Techs twenty-two field

service representatives (in North America
and over 50 worldwide) may be asked to
come to site once, twice, three or even six
times in a twelve month period. The service
representative will go through a thorough
examination of the system following a
complete module-by-module list of items to
verify, all being recorded on paper. At the
end of the visit, a complete recommendations
report is provided to the customer for
evaluation and actions to be undertaken (if
needed).

on the number of total hours of downtime

or if going to the extremes, the costs of
losing a customer because you could not
deliver an order within the expected timeframe. As your equipment gets older,
prevention should become part of your
vocabulary or you will certainly experience
some unwanted downtimes. Preventing
also means keeping a legitimate number of
spares on your shelves to cover most wear
and tear items. Your equipment supplier
should be able to provide you with such a
list.

Reacting VS Preventing What are the

cost differences between them ?

Joining the PM5 program, our customers

benefit from yearly parts rebates, priority
for on-site service and many other privileges.
For further information, we invite you to
visit our web site at :
WWW.PM-5.COM

It is difficult to forecast the costs for reacting

as opposed to Preventing. It will all depend

INSIDE THE PACKAGING WORLD OF PREMIER TECH

Visual identification by territories

03 | INPACK | March 2004

AUTOMATION THROUGH INNOVATION

BAGGING INNOVATION
FOR THE CEMENT MIXES /
CONCRETE INDUSTRY
strategy and be first to market. Lisa

disable the sealing process. After a long

Forwell, President of Forwell Materials Inc.

research period with many suppliers,

We wanted to package our products cleaner

Forwell Materials Inc. found the Premier

for health and safety of our employees and

Tech Chronos FFS-200 Series Horizontal

customers, more efficiently and cost effective.

Form, Fill and Seal Bagger which would

But how can we conciliate dusty products

meet its specifications. This automatic

with cleanliness, quality and estheticism to

system makes its own bags from rolls of

preserve its partnership with its distributors

polyethylene pre-printed center-folded film

as well as its market share?

(U-film).

REACH EFFICIENCY IN DUSTY

RESPECT OF THE DELIVERY DATE

ENVIRONMENT
The original version of the FFS-200 has
Forwell Materials was looking for the

been modified and adapted to the concrete

appropriate system to replace its two valve

mixes application for this particular customer.

packers which reached production rates of

To conduct this project, a team of engineers

18 BPM of 66 lb bags averaging up to

proceeded with different tests with the

3lbs. of give-away product per bag. They

product to ensure the efficiency of the system.

also wanted to move away from paper bags

One important factor in the overall success

because they would often tear and are still

of the project was to respect the delivery

extremely dusty. This project presented several

date of the equipment at customer site. To

technical challenges with regards to the

do so, the engineering team doubled-up all

dusty environment, type of product to handle

efforts to meet the pre-established tight

SATISFY THE DISTRIBUTORS AND

and the bag material. Sealing a plastic bag

schedule for the equipment modification,

END-USERS

in such dusty environment necessitated

testing and manufacturing and make sure

some re-engineering work on the machinerys

that the installation would not affect the

When you are in the concrete industry and

suppliers side. It was obvious that the need

Forwell Materials Inc. plant production.

your products are intended to the retail

to find a bagging system which would be

Considering that the FFS-200 Series tech-

market, it is not easy to meet distributors

efficient all while raising production rate

nology is well-known by Premier Tech

and end-users expectations. Why ? Simply

and minimizing give-away product was there.

Chronos engineering team, it took only

because bags are covered by concrete

2 weeks to make the installation and

dust and inevitably the wholesaler displays

commissioning of the system and meet/

are dusty as well as the customers car

A TOTAL INNOVATION IN THE CEMENT

exceed

trunks.

MIXES/CONCRETE INDUSTRY

Although this is a totally new market and

In response to its customers

demand,

the

customers

expectations.

application for this system, there are still a

Forwell Materials Inc./ Quikrete of Ontario,

The use of polyethylene bags for concrete

few minor adjustments to complete before

an important North American producer of

products is totally new to this industry. In

this experience will be called a total success.

concrete mixes, have been searching for a

fact, it is not easy to bag a dusty product

Both Forwell Materials Inc. and Premier

way to provide its product in cleaner,

at high temperature (140 - 170 degrees)

Tech Chronos are working hand in hand as

stronger esthetical plastic bags with gussetted

with heat-sealable polyethylene bags. The

partners in this to revolutionize the industry

bottoms. Our goal was to revolutionize our

reason is that poly bags must be strong

as a whole. Premier Tech Chronos technical

approach to packaging concrete mix materials,

enough to take high product temperatures

support has been fantastic throughout this

through efficiency, a total consumer marketing

and at the same time not be too thick to

design , installation and implementation

04 | INPACK | March 2004

AUTOMATION THROUGH INNOVATION

process, Lisa Forwell, all little glitches are

ironed out.

NEW SYSTEM, NEW BAGS AND QUICK

INVESTMENT PAYBACK
In this specific case, the new equipment
allowed the producer to increase its
production rate up to 25 BPM with this
new system only one bagger. The weight of

American continent to answer their very

entire bagging lines from A to Z. Premier

each bag respects the original 66 lb per

specific needs as well as the growing

Tech Chronos, with installation worldwide,

bag but now the Premier Tech Chronos

demand by the end-users.

can offer imperial designs as well as technical

UBM- 1100 Duplex Scale above the bagger

support locally. For further details, please

is achieving a precision of 1 oz (27 g) of

visit:

give-away product per unit which is a

TIP : LOOK FOR ONE TRUE INTEGRATOR

tremendous improvement in weight consis-

AS OPPOSED TO MULTI-VENDORS

www.premiertechchronos.com
Contacts:

tency. Only because of this accuracy

improvement, Forwell Materials Inc. gains

Complete integration, turnkey projects or

Forwell Materials, Cambridge, ON

up to two complete pallets of filled bags at

one single contact are all terms that have

Lisa Forwell, P. Eng

the end of each production day. Also, the

become of great importance for all producers

President

Premier Tech Chronos FFS-200 Series

in any industry. When a corporation gets

(519) 743-3679

operates with a 40-inche roll capacity allowing

involved in bagging operations and focuses

www.forwell.net

many hours of continuous operation.

on maximizing throughput therefore minimizing

Combined with accuracy of filled bags, higher

production costs per unit, they should consider

Premier Tech Chronos, Riviere-du-Loup, QC

production as well as the cost for bag

an equipment supplier that can provide not

Anthony Siblall

materials (as opposed to paper valve bags),

only the bagger, but the dosing (feeder/

(418) 868-TECH (8324)

this new system represents enormous

scale), the bagging, all conveying, palletizing

www.premiertechchronos.com

savings which will all contribute to a quicker

and stretch wrapping systems as well. Only

investment payback.

a handful of suppliers do the complete

manufacturing and are able to integrate

As published in Powder&Bulk Engineering, May 2003

issue.

FULFILL ITS GOALS

Forwell Materials Inc., the family business

FROM

TO

ownership of this concrete mixing plant

Dusty Paper
Valve Bag

CLEAN PLASTIC
U-FOLD FILM BAGS

now fulfilled all of its goals ; preserving its

partnership with its distributors and satisfying
end-users, increasing its market share with
cleaner, stronger

esthetical plastic bags

with gussetted bottom and first to market

in North America. Finally, they found the
best available technology on the North

05 | INPACK | March 2004

AUTOMATION THROUGH INNOVATION

UP COMING FAIRS & SHOWS

Exhibition/Symposium

Focus

Date

Location

International Powder & Bulk

Solids Show

Powder Processing
Bulk Handling

May
04.- 06. | 2004

Rosemont. IL
USA

Victam

Animal/Feed

May
01.- 13. | 2004

Utrecht,
Netherlands

Pack Expo
International

Packaging Industry

November
07.- 11. | 2004

Chicago. IL
USA

Total Processing &

Packaging

Processing, packaging
& production

March 29 April 1 | 2004

Birmingham,
England

ACHEMA PARTICIPATION
First German show under new flag
From May 19th to the 24th, the International Sales Crew
of
Chronos Richardson sat on booths G23 to G26 in
hall 3.
This was the first official show in Germany after the
acquisition of Chronos Richardson by Premier Tech. The booth
layout was newly designed, new brochures were available and the
sales team prepared to give the first feedback to the visitors regarding
the changes that had taken place during the previous five months.

Although the show was not as busy as it was in 2000, many

regular customers came to discuss the changes that had taken
place. At the booth, a CHRONOS PAL PL 900C compact palletizer
was shown in operation. However, not only existing customers came
to see Chronos Richardson; also many new and very interesting
contacts were made, enabling us to demonstrate our capability and
commitment in our pursuit to find the right solution for all your
bagging requirements.

ALL YOUR CREATURES COMFORT

Equipment supplied by Premier

Tech Chronos will soon be helping
thoroughbred horses get a good
nights sleep.
Nottinghamshire (UK) based
Creature Comforts, which was
set up less than three years ago
by husband and wife team Jo and
Colin Bower, have taken delivery
of a VF volumetric feeder, EM-600
baler and AP-200 palletizer as
part of their new 1.7 million
Euros processing plant for manufacturing their acclaimed range
of Alfalfa high performance feed

06 | INPACK | March 2004

and dust free fine

bedding. The couple
grow and harvest
the high quality
alfalfa on their 400
hectares farm. They
have already built up
an impressive clientele in the UK, Eire,
Middle East and Hong Kong,
supplying leading owners and
trainers of thoroughbred horses,
including the world famous
Godolphin Stables. The new plant
is capable of producing 700
tonnes of bedding per week,
equating to a throughput of five
bales per minute. The EM-600
baler is designed for packaging
compressible bulk products and
finished bale compression ratios
can be as high as 3:1. The unit
is fully automated and has an
indexing turntable of four stations.
The first two are used to fill the

compression tube and then

compress the product to the
desired compression ratio. The
third station closes and seals the
bags, while the final station transfers
the filled bag to the conveyor
leading to the palletizer. The
Premier Tech Chronos equipment

was chosen on the basis of

efficiency, speed, price and support.
As Jo Bower concludes : This is
a very important stage in the
growth of our company. The fact
that we can now process and
pack the alfalfa products right
here on the farm gives us total
control over our business.
Premier Tech Chronos have been
extremely helpful and supportive
throughout the project and we
can now take on the world
market with confidence.

AUTOMATION THROUGH INNOVATION

THE WORLDS FIRST CALIBRATED

AUTOMATIC G-SCALE CELEBRATES
ITS 120th BIRTHDAY
that this famous scale is still used today.
After the first approval in April 1883, an
amendment was made on December 18th,
1888, which documented an essential
improvement. The scale then received the
design name System C. Commenting about
the forthcoming 120th anniversary of the G
(gravimetric) type scale, Group Legal
Metrology Manager, Wolfgang Euler, quoted
the Spanish philosopher and author Jos
Ortega y Gasset: Progress is not to
destroy yesterdays achievements but to
preserve its essence which has the
power to create a better today.

The worlds first calibrated automatic

G scale celebrated its 120th birthday.
On April 12, 1883, when the first calibrated
automatic scale in the world the well known
Chronos G scale was approved by the
Kaiserliche Normal-Aichungs-Kommission in
Berlin, nobody could imagine that this scale
might still be in production more than one
hundred years later. Regular orders mean

On the occasion of the centerarian

approval
anniversary
of
the
Selbstttigen Registrierwaage of
Chronos Richardson, Professor Dr.-Eng. M.
Kochsiek, Vice-President of PTB* and OIML,
expressed his amazement.I am informed that
you are still manufacturing an automatic
weighing scale which in its main features
corresponds to the one approved a century
ago. This fact is unique in the scale
manufacturing industry and proves the
outstanding design and the farsightedness
of engineers from your company.

to his statement from 1988 by sending

another letter. Continued customer demand
from around the world means that Chronos
still manufactures the G type scale under
the current PTB approval number 10.14/
79.07. The scale is mainly used for freeflowing bulk materials, e.g. grain, and its high
accuracy still keeps within the national and
international Weights & Measures error
limits. As recently as 1992, the scale was
approved in Belgium, in 1996 in Russia and
only last year in 2002 this G-weigher again
received approval for another five years
in Russia.
PTB: Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt
OIML: (Organisation Internationale de Mtrologie Lgale) is the international organisation of the national
approval and W&M authorities

This year, i.e. 20 years later, Mr. Professor

Dr.-Eng. M. Kochsiek gave further emphasis

For representatives in other

countries, please visit our websites.

Premier Tech Chronos

Corporate Office
1, avenue Premier, Rivire-du-Loup
Quebec G5R 6C1 Canada
Phone +1 418 867 8883
Fax
+1 418 862 6642
Chronos Richardson GmbH
Reutherstrae 3
D-53773 Hennef
Germany
Phone +49 2242 883 - 0
Fax
+49 2242 883 - 186

07 | INPACK | March 2004

www.premiertechchronos.com
email: info@premiertechchronos.com

www.chronosrichardson.com
email: info@chronosrichardson.com

Chronos Richardson Limited

Arnside Road, Bestwood
Nottingham NG5 5HD, UK
Phone +44 115 935 1351
Fax
+44 115 960 6941

Chronos Richardson S.r.l.

Via Edison Volta 25/A
43100 Parma, Italy
Phone +39 0521 94 08 41
Fax
+39 0521 94 08 27

Chronos Richardson SA
Le parc de Viry, 14, rue de ris
91170 Viry-Chatillon
France
Phone +33 1 691 21150
Fax
+33 1 691 21159

Chronos Richardson (Thailand) Ltd

333/3 Sukhumvit Soi 71 Road
Prakanong-Nua,Wattana
Bangkok 10110, Thailand
Phone +66 2 39 28 380
Fax
+66 2 38 14 650

AUTOMATION THROUGH INNOVATION

Place
stamp
here
1st EDITION
PREMIER TECH CHRONOS
1, avenue Premier
Rivire-du-Loup, Qc
CANADA G5R 6C1

FIRST EDITION INPACK FIRST EDITION INPACK FIRST EDITION INPACK FIRST EDITION INPACK FIRST EDITION INPACK

PREMIER TECH CHRONOS has made its

mark over the past 15 years through its
capabilities of providing fully integrated
packaging lines, from the product feeding
station to the stretch wrapped pallet.
Complete integration, turnkey projects or
one single contact are all terms that come
back to us on a regular basis. This One
Single Supplier concept eliminates the
logistical nightmares often arising from

08 | INPACK | March 2004

multi-vendor applications. By manufacturing

and integrating each component of the line,
PREMIER TECH CHRONOS guarantees a
perfect system communication.

PREMIER TECH CHRONOS engineers can

then better understand the customer
needs and more easily adapt the equipment
to the application.

PREMIER TECH CHRONOS is specialised in

eight product categories: Dosing Systems,
Form-Fill-Seal, Open-Mouth and Valve
Bagging Systems, FIBC (Bulk Bag) Filling
Systems, Densification Bagging Systems,
Palletizing and Load Security Systems.
Each category has its own engineering
team to work on customer projects. Being
specialized in specific products, the 95

The PREMIER TECH CHRONOS One Single

Supplier concept is more than a One Stop
Shop concept. It is 255 teammates
involved in the manufacturing processes
and 51 service representatives who give
an efficient technical support and an
unparalleled after-sales service. It is also
54 sales representatives and 7 parts
depots available around the world. PREMIER
TECH CHRONOS is active in more than
twenty-one countries servicing small to
large companies and can assist you in all
stages of your automation projects. Feel
free to contact us for further information
or to talk with us about your automation
projects
at
+1-418-868-8324
or
info@premiertechchronos.com. You can
also visit our web site at :
www.premiertechchronos.com.

AUTOMATION THROUGH INNOVATION

Premier Tech Ltd. 2004

COMPLETE INTEGRATION SYSTEMS

BY A SINGLE SUPPLIER