Supply chain services company adds new cartoning line

Based in South Plainfield, N.J., Bettaway Supply Chain Services is an integrated materials handling, transportation and supply chain management company. The company’s offerings include pallet management solutions, a national third-party logistics (3PL) network, various value-added services and the PalletTrader.com digital pallet marketplace.

Recently, Bettaway expanded its packaging and fulfillment services for beverage manufacturers and distributors with a new, state-of-the-art “cartoning” line. Using the line, the company stages and assembles custom-configured cardboard cartons for bottled or canned beverage products.

Bettaway designed its operation to be a full-cycle service, incorporating cartoning, variety-pack shrink-wrap and palletizing capabilities in an automated production line that handles the assembly, shrink-wrapping and labeling of cases of beverages.

The new cartoning line (Econo Corp.) was installed at Bettaway’s BevDS beverage management and fulfillment facility in Piscataway, N.J. Encompassing 300,000 square feet, the warehouse has 38 dock doors, can store 35,000+ fully loaded pallets, and supports companies that manage beverage and other food-grade consumer packaged goods (CPG) products.

Having an automated cartoning line has helped Bettaway expand its packaging options for beverage producers. It also complements the company’s existing automated variety-pack line, where trays of beverages go through a unit that applies and heat-shrink-wraps registered film to beverage packs and bundles them.

Both systems then feed an automated palletizer, which shrink-wraps pallet loads of beverage cases for shipping. With its expanded cartoning and variety-pack lines in full operation, Bettaway has increased its production output capacity to more than three million cases per year.

“Our new cartoning line is the latest example of investments in innovation and technology that have kept Bettaway at the forefront of our market and anticipating the needs of our customers,” said Igor Katsman, vice president of operations.

The new equipment was installed at Bettaway’s Piscataway facility, which incorporates other additional systems and equipment—including fulfillment and distribution—to provide a full-service beverage variety-pack line operation.

The new system takes flat cardboard units and folds and seals them into cartons. Those cartons proceed on a conveyor and are loaded with six- or eight-pack units of beverage bottles or cans. A second repack line produces a tray based, open top variety-pack case and applies branded, registered shrink wrap, which heat-seals and secures the beverage containers in the cartons.

The sealed carton-packs are then conveyed to a computer-controlled mechanical palletizer, which automatically builds precise loads of variety-packed case beverages on pallets, securely shrink-wraps the pallets, and stages them for loading onto trucks and delivering them to retailers throughout the Northeast.

“With our integrated operation, we can do it all at one time in one place,” said Katsman. “We have the cartoning material on hand and we take in bottled beverages from the producer and stage the inventory in our warehouse, next to the variety pack line. It’s faster, more efficient and eliminates wasteful extra transportation and handling.”