A packaging installation for forming finished products, from batches of articles, including a conveyor, a feed track, an article transferring mechanism, and a conveyor drive mechanism. The conveyer is able to receive batches of articles to route them from an upstream location to a downstream location. The feed track routes articles to the conveyer. The article transferring mechanism that transfers articles from the feed track to the conveyer groups the articles to form spaced apart batches. The transporter routes cardboard blanks or equivalent to the conveyer, and disposes the blanks on the conveyer opposite batches of articles. The conveyor, transfer, and transport drive mechanism, is characterized in that it comprises a control and slaving device, that applies a speed profile to each drive mechanism to allow the adjustment of the pitch and/or number of articles per batch according to the pitch and/or type of batch required.