New shape for your PET bottle?

Just single-source a fast change-over for your complete line!

New trendy shapes of the packaging and beverage bottle dress attract the customers’ attention. Any new PET bottle shapes requested by the marketing people must pass swiftly through their design phase.

Take Schiffers Food B.V. in Hoensbroek, for example: this soft-drinks producer, owned by the Dutch brewery Bavaria N.V., asked Krones’ PET Design people to develop a new PET bottle family comprising two 0.5-l bottles, three 0.75-l bottles and one 1.5-l bottle. Moreover, Krones LCS adapted the technical equipment of the entire line. This complete-service package makes Krones able to support a line’s make-over for handling another bottle shape from beginning to end, covering the entire machine portfolio needed.

First of all, the salient bottle characteristics like diameter, height, label size and the bottle volume were specified. Three-dimensional CAD data were generated, providing a first visual impression of what the bottle would look like. Sample bottles produced on a laboratory stretch blow-moulder in the pilot plant of Krones’ PET Technology Centre served for further assessment by the client. In addition to bottle production proper in the Contiform S16 stretch blow-moulder with 16 new moulds, this also included the AirCo conveyor, and retrofits to the filler, the Contiroll and Canmatic labellers, the SynCo bottle conveyor right through to the Variopac shrink-wrapper for trays, and the Robot 3A palletiser.

The LCS people conducted test runs and, following an installation and commissioning phase of about one week, they handed over the line, incorporating all the handling parts, at the efficiency level agreed. Krones’ LCS Department was asked to handle the change-over procedure for two more bottle sizes, likewise with all the requisite handling parts.