A carton is disclosed for use in storing, transporting and displaying a plurality of articles and including a base member for supporting the articles and a top cap cover telescoping over the articles and upturned panels of the base member. The cover is detachably connected to the base member by adhesive material applied to the corners of the base member. To remove the cover, a user inserts his fingers between adjacent panels of the cap cover and base member and quickly extends his hands outwardl...

Surge control apparatus and corresponding method are particularly adapted for the safe handling of highly crushable and/or tearable products, such as paper-based box type aseptic packages. A flow of products along a conveyor exiting an accumulator is held until previously released products have progressed a predetermined distance down the conveyor towards a subsequent workstation, such as a packer. If a product queue occurs within the accumulator, the upstream flow of packages is halted, and the...

Apparatus is disclosed for opening the major and minor flaps of a box container being conveyed on an article loading machine designated generally as (A). The apparatus includes a flap opening foot (54) carried on the end of a rocker shaft (46) which is, in turn, carried on a carriage (48). The end of the rocker shaft is attached to a bell-crank lever having an arm (80) and a pin (82) which travels in a cam slot (52) formed in an elongated guide plate (50). The guide plate (50) is clamped onto th...

An apparatus for feeding cartons in succession from a stack of cartons carried in an elongated chute onto a receiving chute. The apparatus includes a support member which has a plurality of picker fingers carried thereon. The support member is moved from a carton grasping position to a carton release position. When the support member is moved to the carton grasping position, picker fingers including power-operated cylinders having enlarged gripping heads provided on the end of the piston thereof...

A device for feeding cartons in succession from a stack of cartons for being deposited on top of articles carried in a case being moved on a conveyor. A plurality of picker fingers are selectively moved to and from the stack of cartons, and outwardly extending projections carried on top of the picker fingers extend between the lowermost carton and the next carton. Upon lowering of the picker fingers, the lowermost cartons of the stack are deposited on a feed chute for delivery to the case. The c...

A grid finger for use in a grid structure for delivering articles from an article supply source to compartments and containers. The finger is a readily removable flexible finger that has a substantially flat main body portion, a right angle flange portion adjacent the top of the main body portion, and a flexible elongated flat article engaging section. A compressible resilient member is carried by the right angle flange portion so that it can be readily secured to and released from an elongated ...

A laner is disclosed for a case packing machine which divides scrambled articles into single files with reduced jamming, malfunctioning, and breakage. The laner includes lane dividers which are spaced to provide a plurality of lanes having parallel sections with entry openings wide enough to receive at least 3 articles in a side-by-side arrangement. The lanes terminate in single file lanes having a spacing generally equal to the width of one article. A tapered transition section extends between ...

Bottles or like articles are fed singly in ungrouped bottle-to-bottle contact in a continuous path by gravity feed in sequence onto horizontally moved cases carried by a conveyor disposed below the line of movement of the bottles or like articles, the case conveyor moving the cases at a predetermined speed. The bottles are conveyed to the cases on inclined paths and/or spaced rails, the bottles being slidably movable on portions adjacent the inclined paths and/or spaced rails. In one embodiment ...

A continuous motion apparatus and method are disclosed where discrete, successive slugs of articles are picked up by pick-up heads revolving in a vertical plane path, and are transferred over a linear transfer section of that path to a case packing station. A vertical motion mechanism lowers the pick-up heads at the case packing station to gently place the slugs into indexed cases in a reliable manner.

A continuous motion apparatus and method are disclosed where slugs of articles are picked up by pick-up heads revolving in a vertical plane path, and are transferred to a case packing station. A vertical motion mechanism lowers the pick-up heads at the case packing station to gently place the slugs into indexed cases in a reliable manner. The slugs, pick-up heads, and indexed cases are fed in continuous, synchronous motions. The pick-up heads are carried on the transfer arms in alignment with gr...