IMA Dairy & Food has recently announced upgrades to its ZERO Technology cutting tools, letting brands utilise monomaterial cup packages. This enhanced cutting tool aims to bring down production downtime, minimise spare part costs and raises overall efficiency.

The extractable central cutting unit design, best for IMA’s Erca, Hassia and Intecma form-fill-seal (FFS) machines, allows the cutting and pre-cutting of PET, PP and PLA materials. Monomaterial cup multipacks can then be broken down into individual cups, which is typically a difficult process to do.

IMA adopted a building block approach, featuring interchangeable cutting components that can be easily replaced onsite. What usually takes 3 to 6 hours to replace an entire cutting tool is cut into 20 minutes, reducing downtime significantly. Parts can also be stored in-house for ongoing maintenance, reducing overall cost as replacing components is cheaper than switching out entire units.

The ZERO technology is more robust that traditional tools, with the number of punches in between sharpenings reaching 7 million.

There’s also no need for new thermoforming mold as the equipment utilises independent sleeves for cup design changes. This also creates potential to create completely recyclable packaging, for instance, fitting a PET lid and label to a formed cup.

IMA Dairy & Food is a US-based packaging machinery supplier for the dairy and food industry. Its product lines include Forming, filling and sealing equipment, filing systems and wrapping machines.