Cruz Azul Hidalgo Tile Mortar Packaging Line

Project Overview

Cruz Azul, a major Mexican cement producer founded in 1881, sought to expand its market offering beyond its significant 22% national market share in cement. The strategy involved launching a new product line: several types of tile mortar. To support this expansion, the company built a new Greenfield packaging facility at its Hidalgo plant dedicated solely to this new product.

The project required a complete, high-speed packaging solution to automate the entire process from filling empty bags to preparing stable, wrapped pallets ready for transportation. Key requirements included the ability to fill eight different types of tile mortar and achieve a system throughput target of 2,200 bags per hour. Cruz Azul chose to partner with BEUMER Group, leveraging a long-standing relationship that included previous installations of bucket elevators, truck loaders, and palletizers, to act as the single-source provider for this critical new line.

Technical Solution

Rotary Bag Filling & Automatic Bag Placing

The process begins at the bag filling station, centered around a BEUMER rotary bag filling machine with a potential capacity of up to 6,000 bags per hour. An automatic bag placer was a critical adaptive component, installed to guide empty bags onto the highly pressurized filling spouts after a last-minute change in raw material required the use of smaller bags. The spouts optimally compact the fine-grained tile mortar.

Key Features

BEUMER Group delivered the project as a true single-source provider, responsible for all core technologies: filling, palletizing, and final packaging (stretch-hooding). The line's design incorporates significant flexibility and resilience, evidenced by the integration of the automatic bag placer to adapt to unforeseen product changes without derailing the project timeline or output goals.

The automation is comprehensive, covering every step from empty bag to shipment-ready pallet with integrated quality control. The use of stretch-hood technology provides superior protection and branding opportunities compared to traditional methods, while the high-level palletizer ensures gentle handling and perfect stack formation for a fragile product like bagged mortar.

Results & Benefits

The packaging line successfully achieved its target throughput of 2,200 bags per hour, enabling Cruz Azul to launch its new tile mortar product line at the required commercial scale. The adaptive solution involving the bag placer allowed production goals to be met despite significant last-minute changes to the product specifications.

The fully automated process guarantees high and consistent stack quality with gentle product handling. The stretch-hood wrapping secures the pallets for safe transportation, provides weather resistance, improves theft prevention due to the thick film, and enhances brand visibility in the market. The partnership with BEUMER also includes ongoing service and lifecycle support, ensuring the system operates reliably 24/7.

Challenges & Solutions

A major mid-project challenge arose when the source of the tile mortar's raw materials changed, affecting the product's weight and density and necessitating a switch to smaller bags. BEUMER Group's solution was to integrate an automatic bag placer into the line. This component allowed the system to handle the new bag size seamlessly, ensuring the production throughput target of 2,200 bags per hour could still be achieved without a complete redesign.

The core business challenge was establishing an entirely new, automated production line for a new product category. Cruz Azul addressed this by leveraging its trusted partnership with BEUMER Group to design and build a complete, turnkey packaging line in a new Greenfield facility, ensuring a dedicated, efficient, and high-capacity launch platform for the tile mortar.

System Integrator

BEUMER Group served as the turnkey system integrator and single-source technology provider for this project. Their scope included the design, supply, integration, and installation of the entire packaging line—from the rotary bag filler and automatic bag placer to the weigh checker, high-level palletizer, and stretch-hood machine. Their long-term partnership with Cruz Azul and ability to adapt to project changes were key to the successful implementation. BEUMER also provides ongoing customer support through its global service network for warranty, lifecycle management, and spare parts.