A food packaging machinery manufacturer trusts ReeR Safety to meet the demanding reliability and performance requirements of machines which perform high-speed processing tasks between a slicer and a thermoforming machine.
(See Plus Automation at FoodManufacturing.Live, 15 October 2025, on stand 49)
These machines, for example, pick, load, align, dose, overlap and roll foods such as cheese slices, cold cuts, hams, and hamburgers and then place them into trays or a thermoforming machine.
Many of the company's machines are customised to meet customers' requirements and differentiate them from mass-produced machines.
Physical guards to protect operators and the machinery, can often obstruct vision and restrict the ability to access the machine when required. ReeR's safety light curtains provide an alternative, ensuring that the machine is stopped if a person's limb or clothing enters a hazardous area.
Removable guards also often have ReeR's R-SAFE Reer safety sensors with RFID technology to ensure their safe location.
The machines are made mainly of stainless steel and other materials suitable for use in the food and beverage industry. Components must also be chosen from those suitable for food contact and capable of withstanding the thorough daily cleaning cycles carried out on food production machines.
For safety light curtains, ReeR's EOS4s are equipped with IP69K enclosures, the EOS4 WTFs (Water Tight Food), which are also Ecolab-approved.
The EOS safety light curtains with WTF and WTHF (heated) housings allow use in environments exposed to water and steam jets with pressures up to 80 bar and temperatures up to 80degC, plus exposure to detergents and disinfectants.The materials used to make the housing, such as stainless steel, Delrin and PMMI, are suitable for use in the food industry because they are inert and do not generate food contaminants.
All EOS safety light curtains can be used down to -25degC, and thus in refrigerated environments, but the WTHF (heated) models feature a thermostat-controlled heating system that facilitates their elimination of condensation that might form on the transparent surface of the housing.
To maximise the machine's operation and avoid stops and restarts, which require handling safely, it is interesting to note how physical and optical guards have been incorporated. Physical guarding is extensively used to reduce unintentional stoppages, such as interrupting the barrier with an arm or an operator's clothing.
A machine typically consists of several semi-independent modules, each performing a dedicated procedure.All are equipped with numerous safety sensors, such as light curtains, door-opening sensors, and emergency STOP buttons, connected locally to remote I/Os of a single ReeR MOSAIC Safety controller. Mosaic is a modular and expandable safety system able to manage all safety functions of a machine, machinery or an entire plant.
Each module can be separated from the others and, for safety, connects with a single cable.
MOSAIC makes it possible to intelligently evaluate received signals, for example, interrupting only one module and not the complete line, with a continuous exchange of information with the PLC that manages machine automation.
Mosaic master units Mosaic M1, Mosaic M1S and Mosaic M1S COM are configurable using the MSD (Mosaic Safety Designer) graphic interface which is provided with each Master unit at no extra cost. MSD will also report the values of PFHd, DCavg and MTTFd according to EN 13849-1 and EN 62061.
The Mosaic M1S COM master unit integrates two RJ45 network connectors for connections to the field bus and / or to the network for remote control. This provides remote-control when it is connected to an Ethernet network, with full control available through an Internet connection. This allows technicians to remotely intervene on machine settings, reprogramming and/or solving customer needs quickly and easily regardless of where the machine is physically installed, because sales are world-wide.