Converter Film

The Vertical form fill sealing machine (FFS) is a type of automated assembly-line product packaging system, commonly used in the packaging industry for food, minerals and chemicals as well as a wide variety of other products. The machine constructs plastic bags out of a flat roll of plastic film, while simultaneously filling the bags with product and sealing the filled bags. Both solids and liquids can be bagged using this packaging system.

The typical machine is loaded with a continuous flat roll of polythene film, which has had labelling and artwork applied to the exterior or interior of the film.

The film approaches the back of a long hollow conical tube, and when the centre of the plastic is near the tube, the outer edges of the film form flaps that wrap around the conical tube. The film is pulled downward around the outside of the tube and a vertical heat-sealing bar clamps onto the edges of the film, bonding the film by melting the seam edges together.

To start the bagging process, a horizontal sealing bar clamps across the bottom edge of the tube, bonding the film together, and cutting off any film below. The sealed tube end is then lowered onto a precision weighing table and the product to be bagged is dispensed through the long conical tube in the centre of the bag. When the gross weight of the product-filled bag is reached, filling stops, and the horizontal sealing bar seals the top of the bag, simultaneously forming the bottom of the next bag above. This bag is then cut off from the tube and is now a sealed package, ready to advance onward into the product boxing and shipping processes.