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Innovative side gusseted bag making machine

Production with Integrated Top Slider
B&B – MAF GmbH & Co. KG from Hopsten, Germany, has established itself as a pioneer for
the development and manufacturing of machines for the production of side gusseted bags
and for equipment for the application of sliders. Now B&B – MAF presents a new development which cuts the investment costs for bag producers almost by half in comparison to the
equipment which was necessary to produce comparable top slider bags so far.

Side gusseted bags made of plastic laminates are used for the packaging of a broad range of
products. Reclosable systems at the bag head (top slider) allow the consumer to open the
bag easily, remove a dose of the packaged product and easily reclose the bag afterwards.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, B&B-MAF is involved in the development of side gusseted
bags. Solutions for a wide variety of functional auxiliary features at the bag such as handles,
easy opening devices or reclosable systems have been realized in close collaboration with
packaging enterprises.
The top slider attached to the inside of the bag head clearly emerges to be the most functional and most important application. Side gusseted bags with top slider are considered the
most popular bags in the market. The reclosable system creates a remarkable added value
and is perceived as a considerable additional benefit by the consumer.
For this reason, B&B – MAF has decided to offer a machine especially designed for the production of top slider bags. During the new development the design team focused on realizing
a simplified process for the production of high quality side gusseted bags with top slider.
The new, cost-effective machine produces side gusseted bags from a flat film roll of PET/PElaminates in longitudinal direction. Reclosable systems like top sliders of different suppliers
like Pactiv, Zip-Pak or Flexico can be sealed into the bag in the transversal machine section.
The bag width to be produced on the new machine ranges from 190 mm to 450 mm and the
bag length from 350 mm to 850 mm.
At the same time B&B – MAF does not renounce the compliance of highest quality standards
and the utilization of highest quality components. The achieved reduction of machine costs of
the newly introduced machine SFB 8E –LT is the result of an innovative, simplified concept
for the production of side gusseted bags with top slider which makes use of synergies in the
longitudinal and the transversal production process.

The new development incorporates the well-proven B&B – MAF modular design. This design
allows for future extensions of the machine with all kinds of working stations, for example for
the application of handles, spouts or other features to the bags. For the bag producers the
modular design stands for a maximum level of flexibility and investment security due to the
possibility to easily adapt the machine to future market requirements.
The new side gusseted bag machine was introduced during the in-house exhibition of B&B –
MAF in June 2010. It is available for visitations and production demonstrations at the company’s factory in Hopsten. Furthermore, sample productions with customer film according to
customer specifications can be carried out.
As a result of the rapidly increasing demand for woven PP bags with top slider from the USA
the next step of development at B&B – MAF is to process the woven PP material on the SFB
8E –LT machine and add a top slider to the thus produced bag.