Sidel will be featuring its latest technological innovations in the blow moulding sector, which will include the Actis treated PET beer bottle for the German market, as well as highlighting its expanded international presence at the forthcoming BRAU trade show in Germany.
Following new German legislation which was made effective January 1, 2003, consumers are now required to return their beverage containers to the point of purchase, the Belgian brewing company, Martens, is banking on the success of Sidel's barrier PET bottle to package beer for a major German distributor. FPD reported on this major innovation in a detailed article last week.
Cutting back on packaging costs
Based on a proven blowing technology, Sidel has introduced innovations to guarantee production performance, finished product quality, and profitability of projects. According to the company these innovations are aimed at improving speeds, energy consumption, and simplifying operations and maintenance with a new functional housing and a vision system for bottle inspections.
At 1,600 bottles per hour and per mould Sidel claims that its blowing machines accelerate production without sacrificing reliability. The blowing machines have improved productivity due to new kinematics that make guiding systems even more accurate and reliable. Certain cam profiles and strokes have been reengineered to extend the life of the machine's moving parts; transfer arms are now made of lightweight alloys making them lighter and increasing machine speeds, the company says.
Air consumption reduced
Fewer dead spaces in the blowing air distribution system result in savings of up to 15 per cent of 40-bar air and the company claims that this saving can be boosted to 30 per cent using a new exhaust air recovery system. This optional system reuses exhaust air from the previous bottle blowing cycle for the current pre-blow cycle. Depending on the system's configuration, it can also supply 7 bar control air.
A new Modular Self-Supporting Housing (HMA) was designed for the SBO Series2+ equipment. It provides easy access to machine systems and makes maintenance and format changeovers faster, thus increasing actual production time. This housing is said to be easy to remove because it is entirely independent from the machine's structure and is up to 5 times lighter per panel. Honeycomb panels are used to reduce noise levels by over 2 dBA during production. This significantly improves operator working conditions at the workstation. Honeycomb panels are easy to clean using high-pressure jet cleaning, and the panels' design eliminates the need for sound insulation foam. Thus, the HMA housing significantly improves hygiene in the machine enclosure.
Pressco vision system
Aiming to achieve zero defect production goals, the Intellispec is a package inspection system provided as an optional extra. The system checks all bottles produced on Sidel blowing machines by inspecting the base, neck, and walls of PET bottles at the bottle transfer at blowing discharge. The exact source of all bottle defects can be traced for quick problem diagnosis and any corrective measures.
These innovations are said to reduce unit production cost of packages by nearly 10 per cent while guaranteeing the performance and quality of those packages. All of these innovations are available for all models in the SBO range, from 6,000 to 32,000 bph, except for SBO 24, 28, and Dual Cavity equipment.
International presence
Opened in May 2003, Sidel Vienna is Sidel's head office for the Central and Eastern European Zone, where nearly 600 Sidel machines are currently installed. This office boosts the group's presence in the region (with its German and Russian subsidiaries), bringing total staff in this zone to over 70 people.
Sidel says that the subsidiary reflects the group's commitment to establish convenient locations near its customers to offer them better service. Located in the recently-built Business Center Muthgasse, Sidel Vienna is housed in modern facilities. Dominique Lipinski, Vice President of the Central and Eastern European zone, has a team of about ten people working with him at Sidel Vienna to handle sales and marketing activities and to develop a local base of services.
Sidel is one of the world's leading manufacturers of systems for packaging liquid foods in PET. Sidel employs 4,000 people in 25 countries and is a subsidiary of Tetra Laval.