Folding Device Removes Mask Production Wrinkle

Challenges created by the coronavirus are being upstaged by the dedicated contributions of companies like German-based Wrapping Solutions (Rosengarten), which decided to produce mouth and nose protection masks. Since March 23, the company that ordinarily manufactures interior fittings for cars is now making approximately 24,000 masks per day are sewn at 20 workplaces ­– the company plans to expand that to 40 sewing workstations and produce masks in a two-shift operation.

“According to estimates, around 14 million protective masks are needed in Germany every day,” says Managing Director Wolfgang Schaller.

What a difference some innovation would make.

Enter Optima (Greenbay, WI), which designs and builds packaging machines for  pharmaceutical, consumer, nonwovens and life science products. They’re now supporting Wrapping Solutions with a solution of their own that’s optimizing the work processes.

“We have built a device for folding face masks and successfully put it into operation at Wrapping Solutions on March 31,” reports Werner Volk, who is responsible for new applications at OPTIMA life science GmbH.

The folding was previously done manually and proved to be a bottleneck in production. The machine-made fabric blanks are folded in the station and ultrasonically welded on both sides. In the last work step, loops are sewn to the masks.

“We are very pleased with the technical support from a special machine manufacturer like Optima,” says Schaller. This is a first step toward accelerating the production of the masks, he added.

In order to further increase the company’s production capacity, talks are currently underway on possible automation of this process.

www.optima-packaging.com