CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to Indian Patent Application Number 202011011370 entitled “DESIGN OF SAFETY-ENRICHED SITTING-POSITION ORIENTED HAND-HELD APPARATUS FOR DAMAGED POUCH AND SACHET CUTTING FOR RE-WORK IN FMCG INDUSTRIES” and filed on Mar. 17, 2020 for Gurdeep Singh, et al., which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to a hand-held apparatus. More specifically, the present invention relates to a hand-held apparatus for extracting the contents of a sachet/pouch.

PRIOR ART AND PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED

The Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) are low-priced items that are used with a single or limited number of consumption occasions and are also sometimes referred to as consumer packaged goods or groceries. FMCG is composed of three major product segments Food, Beverage, and Household/Personal Care products. FMCG is an essential part of day to day life of every person across the globe and accounts for more than half of all consumers spending. The production process of FMCG industries involves various make and pack activities being carried out on fast-paced parallel assembly lines built upon shop-floor areas. These activities include packing of finished goods, labeling, and stamping of cartons, segregating the defective finished goods for re-work, dispatching the finished goods, etcetera. Ignorance towards Ergonomics—the science of human-machine compatibility is the distinctive feature of such industries, and such industries often neglect the safety features in their working activities too.

Re-work of defective liquid-filled pouches/sachets is one of such prominent activity related to FMCG shop-floor, especially in Food Processing (jams/jellies/pickles) and Personal Care Products (hair oil/shampoo/liquid detergent). Often while manufacturing the sachets/pouches on highly paced assembly, the finished pouches are rejected due to various quality reasons viz. non-printing of proper batch numbers (label graphic details), inadequately filled quantity, shrinkage of pouches/sachets (due to overheating/vibrating machines), improper cutting (as per standards) etcetera. In such cases, only the outer part of pouches is considered as waste, whereas the in-filled liquid (oil/shampoo) is extracted out to be collected and further re-used for fresh filling in the new products (pouches/sachets). This becomes the re-work activity of pouch/sachet cutting, which is the full-time activity on FMCG shop-floor as FMCGs are low cost—high volume products (1 lakh pouches per day, 25-30 percent wastage, i.e., 25,000 pouches re-worked daily). Such pouch cutting activities are often carried out using sharp-edged blades/cutters, which are used with bare hands and that too with slippery hands causing cuts and injuries and becomes a safety concern for factory management.

Therefore, there arises a requirement of an apparatus which overcomes the aforementioned challenges associated with the conventional re-work tools/techniques.

THE OBJECTIVE OF THE INVENTION

It is common for commodities to be packed in closed envelopes, sachets, or pouch and sachet, which in this specification will be referred to collectively as pouch and sachet. The commodities can be particulate or liquid. Comestibles, cosmetic or pharmaceutical preparations, and general household materials such as cleansers inclusive of shampoos, hair-oil, pickles, jams, and jellies are examples of the many products (content) which are packaged in pouch and sachet. During manufacture, faulty filled pouch and sachet may be produced from time to time which has to be rejected during subsequent inspection or packing operations. It is considered desirable to forcefully cut open the faulty pouch and sachet to recover the contents therefrom, particularly when the commodity is relatively precious. The recovered contents can then be reprocessed and used again in the manufacture of fault-free pouch and sachet.

The apparatus of the present invention prevents direct exposure of bare and slippery hands to sharp cutters and blades thereby ensuring the safety of the user performing re-work activities using the apparatus.

Further, the apparatus of the present invention is used by the user in a sitting-position to reduce the stress of working in a standing position thereby making the work easy to perform with enhanced efficiency and productivity.

The manually operable apparatus of the present invention includes a roller press assembly and a roller glider cum collection bin. The roller press assembly includes a handle, a detachable frame provided with a roller and a clamp coupled to a blade/cutter for cutting the sachet/pouch. The roller is capable of extracting out the contents from the pierced (cut) pouches/sachets by effectively rolling and pressing upon such pouches and sachets. The roller of the apparatus can be replaced (after wear and tear) by merely pulling the frames aside.

The roller of the apparatus eliminates the manual need of squeezing out the contents by pressing the pouch/sachet with bare hands and thus keeps the hand clean and dry.

The clamped cutter/blade of the present invention can be adjusted to any length as per the use just by opening/closing a wing nut provided upon the top of the C-clamp.

The roller glider cum collection bin of the present invention includes a plurality of holes that enable the extracted liquid (content) to be collected in a collection bin. A primary tanker/container may further be connected to the collection bin through an opening using valves and pipes. Further, the apparatus of the present invention is made of stainless steel material to prevent contamination of the liquid contents being extracted due to rust or other forms of reaction.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a hand-held apparatus for extracting the contents of a sachet/pouch. A roller press assembly of the hand-held apparatus includes a handle, a detachable frame coupled to a handle and a clamp. The detachable frame is further provided with a roller for squeezing the contents of a sachet/pouch. The clamp is provided over the detachable frame coupled to a cutter for cutting the sachet/pouch. A roller glider cum collection bin of the hand-held apparatus includes a base for receiving the roller press assembly. The base includes a plurality of holes for collecting the contents of the sachet/pouch in a collection bin provided at the bottom of the base. The base further includes a guide rail for providing a channel for the cutter. In the packaging art particularly in manufacturing filled packages formed with envelopes having contents of the character described, as for example, in making shampoo, sachets, or in packaging oil in small envelopes and it has often been found commercially impractical to salvage the contents of such filled packages which have been spoiled or otherwise found defective due to high labor costs and involvements of relatively slow and tedious hand operations required to reclaim the same. It is to this class of reclamation the present invention has been found to have great utility. So here, a sitting position oriented hand-held device is designed which is capable of extracting the liquid from the sachet without letting the blade or cutter touch the hand of the user ensuring safety and efficiency. The device can work efficiently to quickly extract the liquid and to retrieve the content from the damaged packaging, which can be re-used. The device further includes a tank/container attached at the lower end so that the extracted content can be filled into it. The work can be done in a sitting position making the work easy to perform with efficiency and enhanced productivity.

The foregoing features and other features as well as the advantages of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying figures.

