At Interpack 1981 in Düsseldorf, the Machinery Division presented the ROTO-PACKER 4.000 Type 8 RV for the first time. Whereas a capacity of 2,000 valve bags per hour was considered standard in the cement industry worldwide in the 20 years prior to this, the new packer doubled this capacity. The technical development was a consequence of the ever-increasing cement plant capacities, particularly in the OPEC countries.
The ROTO-PACKER 4000 8 RV with twelve spouts comprised the proven components of the ROTO-PACKER COMPACT design – but also had some important new assemblies, such as the mechanical 1:5 weigher and a new segment closure on the filling box. The new ROTO-PACKER did not require much more space than a COMPACT-PACKER 6 RCV or 8 RCV – yet offered twice the performance.
The flagship packing machine, the 12-spout ROTO-PACKER, was successfully installed at the Ciments Vicat plant in Grave de Peille, near Nice/France, in December 1982. The packing plant consisted of the ROTO-PACKER, two automatic applicators, two discharge conveyors, two bag traps, two check weighers and two automatic palletizers. When the plant was sold, an output of 4,200 bags per hour had to be guaranteed. Test runs even achieved 5,000 bags per hour. An average throughput of 4,600 bags was attained during the actual performance test.
