Here is a closer look at flow wrapping, both Horizontal Form Fill and Seal (HFFS) and Vertical Form Fill and Seal (HFFS).
Horizontal Flow Wrapping: Used for solid items/brick-style products such as trading cards, cupcake liners, pens, soap, sample mailings, food products and thousands of other applications. The packaging can have a hang hole at the top for display on hooks.
Pros:
- Efficiency: HFFS can pack many sizes and is made for high-volume applications.
- Flexibility: Many types of substrates for packaging materials and different styles of closures.
- Speed: HFFS has clear advantage of reducing overall costs and production time.
Cons:
- Footprint and space required; machines are rather large.
- HFFS are best used for solid items.
- Initial Investment can be substantial.
And now onto…
Vertical Flow Wrapping: Used for loose items such as nuts and bolts, inner packs for retailers, parts kits and food products. This process loads product onto a horizontal conveyor up to a hopper where it is then weighed or counted and then dropped into the plow and sealed to create a bag with a hang hole for peg hooks.
Pros:
- Efficiency: VFFS can pack many sizes and is especially good for high-volume applications.
- Flexibility: Many types of substrates for packaging materials and different styles of closures.
- Smaller footprint for packaging area.
Cons:
- Complexity of the vertical drop and the counting of items to be dropped into the package.
- Changeovers can be complex, depending on the counting devices used for the vertical drop into the package.
- Initial equipment investment can be substantial.