Multipacker OEE: Board Feed, Grouping Jams and Open Packs

Key takeaways

• A multipacker's typical losses are board magazine runouts, board misfeeds, product grouping jams and lock or glue faults.
• Board quality and board supply are material causes; keep them apart from machine faults.
• Open or badly locked packs are its Quality loss.
• Many short stops can stay local when the buffer in front of it is big enough.
• The same stops would reach the filler on a line with a smaller buffer, so measure both.

Multipacker OEE measures the machine that groups cans or bottles and wraps them in paperboard: how long it runs, how close to its rated speed, and how many packs leave closed and good. Its usual losses are board magazine runouts, board misfeeds, grouping jams and lock or glue faults, most of them short.

Fabrico, an OEE and light MES platform, logs each stop with its reason and keeps own stops apart from starved and blocked time. This guide covers where the multipacker's time goes, how to measure each OEE factor, format changes, and a worked shift on a can line.

Where does the multipacker's time go?

Warped or damp board causes misfeeds that look like machine faults. A board quality code sends the problem to storage or the supplier. The same idea applies to cartons; our cartoner OEE guide covers that machine.

How do you measure Availability, Performance and Quality on a multipacker?

• Availability = run time / planned production time. Own faults reduce it; in the full view, so do starved and blocked time.
• Performance = packs made / (run time x rated packs a minute). Set the rated speed per pack format.
• Quality = good packs / packs made. Open, torn or badly locked packs count against it.

Count in packs and in cans or bottles side by side, using the pack count of the running format, so a multipacker stop can be priced in the same units as the filler. Like other machines around the filler, the multipacker usually runs about 10% faster in the V-curve design, so Performance below its own rated speed is often design.

How do you separate the multipacker's own stops from line effects?

1. Read the infeed and outfeed sensors when it stops: empty infeed means starved, full outfeed means blocked.
2. Charge starved and blocked minutes to the machine that stopped first.
3. Report Availability twice: all causes, and own causes only.
4. Rank own causes by count, minutes and money.

Our guide to starvation and blocking shows how to read the states, and the case packer OEE guide covers the machine that usually comes next.

What happens at a format changeover on a multipacker?

A new pack format can mean a new board, new grouping lanes and dividers, new wrap and lock tooling and new settings. Measure from the last good pack of the old format to the first good pack of the new one at rated speed. Change parts on a trolley, settings recorded per format and the new board staged before the change are the usual first wins; see our SMED guide.

A worked shift on a multipacker

Sample line (illustrative numbers, not a customer): a can line where the filler runs 1,200 cans a minute, packed in 12-packs, so the multipacker receives 100 packs a minute. It is rated at 110. The conveyor in front of it holds 4 minutes of cans. The shift has 450 minutes of planned production time.

• Availability = 398 / 450 = 88.4%.
• Performance against its rated speed = 100 / 110 = 90.9%, the designed spare speed.
• Quality: 39,800 packs made, 400 rejected as open or badly locked: 39,400 / 39,800 = 99.0%.
• Which stops reached the filler: none. The longest is 3 minutes, inside the 4 minute buffer. The line lost no cans this shift.
• The crew still handled 43 stops in one shift, and 400 packs needed rework.
• On a line with only a 2 minute buffer, each 3 minute magazine runout would block the filler for 1 minute: 5 filler minutes, or 6,000 cans.

Here the multipacker's losses stayed local, so their cost is crew time and rework, not output. A magazine refill routine and a board quality code are the cheapest fixes either way.

Which mistakes do plants make with multipacker OEE?

• No code for board quality, so supplier and storage problems land on the crew.
• One rated speed for every pack format.
• Counting only packs, never cans, so stops cannot be compared with the filler.
• Filtering out short misfeeds. See our guide to micro stops.
• Assuming a multipacker stop always costs output, without checking the buffer.

Where Fabrico fits

Fabrico is a computer vision enabled Manufacturing Performance Platform. OEE and light MES come first: automatic downtime logging that keeps own stops, starved and blocked time apart, and OEE live by line and shift.

• The operator confirms the reason in one tap, so a misfeed and a magazine runout get different codes.
• A camera clip as evidence for a stop, where a camera watches the board feed or the grouping.
• Losses priced in money and ranked, so local stops and stops that reach the filler are not priced the same.
• One view across plants for the same pack formats on different lines.

You start with a pilot on one line, with a baseline and a decision date agreed in advance. There is no free plan and there are no tiers: each plant gets a quote. Read how a light MES starts on one line in our light MES guide.

Frequently asked questions

How do you calculate multipacker OEE?

Availability is run time over planned production time, Performance is packs made over what it could make at rated speed for that format, and Quality is good packs over packs made. Multiply the three.

What causes multipacker jams?

Warped or damp board, double feeds, fallen cans or bottles in the grouping, a wrong count in the group, and lock or glue faults.

Does a multipacker stop cost line output?

Only when it lasts longer than the buffer in front of it. Otherwise it costs crew time and, sometimes, rework.

Should board problems count against the multipacker?

Code them as board quality or board supply, not as machine faults, so the right people see them.

Should a multipacker be measured in packs or in cans?

Both. Packs for the machine itself, cans or bottles to compare its losses with the filler.

See your multipacker's losses in a demo

Bring one line and its current downtime log. We will show the multipacker's stops, its rejects and what reached the filler.

Request a demo · Contact us