The high performance and sustainability benefits of Ishida’s recently introduced QX-500 tray sealer have been recognized by the winning of a prestigious award.

The Ishida QX-500 won the Innovative Packaging Machinery category at this year's PPMA Awards, which celebrate the very best in UK packaging equipment design and manufacturing. The Innovative Packaging Machinery award recognizes companies that have engineered or adopted a solution that has led to significant productivity improvement and/or cost reduction.

One of the most significant aspects of the Ishida QX-500’s development is that the tray sealer was created as a direct result of feedback from the company’s global customers and partners. This identified the need for a compact tray sealer that can fit easily into new and existing packing lines, offers excellent seal quality and high throughput and at the same time helps companies to meet their sustainability targets.

The QX-500 delivers a 66% increase in cycle speed, a 44% reduction in weight, a 46% reduction in size and a 50% reduction in energy consumption. This means the new tray sealer delivers consistently high-quality seals, significantly reduces waste and delivers a step change in productivity.

To meet the different requirements of products and pack formats, the tray sealer offers a variety of sealing options – seal only, gas flushing, MAP, stretch film and skinpack – across a wide variety of tray designs and materials, including plastic, board and recyclable formats. The QX-500 is also available with integrated film coding, gas mixing and integrated vacuum system.

With customers identifying available factory space as a major challenge, the design of the QX-500 focused on driving down the size and weight of all major sub-systems of the tray sealer to deliver high performance using a minimum machine footprint. This allows companies to realize a high ROI on often limited floor space. 

Alongside this, each component of the machine was individually assessed to calculate its carbon footprint and, where appropriate, alternative materials selected to reduce environmental impact. The use of highly efficient servo motor technology minimizes energy consumption and cost of operation, and the QX-500 monitors its power consumption during production to ensure it is running at the most energy-efficient setting.

The design of the QX-500 also focused on maximizing quality and convenience for consumers. Ishida’s new ‘IntelliSeal’ technology (patent pending) ensures excellent seal integrity for extended shelf life while providing ease of opening. The system constantly measures the sealing force of the tray sealer to optimize sealing pressure, temperature and time for each cycle. This enables the QX-500 to adapt itself to each packaging format.

In the factory, a unique tool change system allows tools to be changed within ten minutes, while a new tray delivery and transfer system offers smooth tray and product handling to ensure maximum seal accuracy and spillage-free product transfer. 

“The winning of the PPMA Award is an outstanding achievement and a fitting tribute to everyone who worked on the development of this game-changing tray sealer,” said Ishida Europe’s Marketing Director Steve Jones.

Jones added: “Understanding and responding to customer needs and concerns has always been central to Ishida’s new product development programs. The positive response we have received to the launch of the QX-500 demonstrates the value of this approach, and the Innovative Packaging Machinery Award is the perfect conclusion to this hugely successful project.”