Page 50 - Ameft Journal 2021/1

BEVERAGES
‘I
Pearlwater bottles around 100 milli- on litres of beverages per year and is one of the top 4 players in water and soft drinks market in Switzerland. It has made water the very heart of its be- verage portfolio and it sources natural mineral water from the Swiss Alps. The water comes from five unique mineral springs in the Valais Alps (also known as the Pennine Alps).
The Pearlwater product range goes from discount to premium brands with a focus on product quality and sustainable production. Among its well-known brands are bottled waters “Swiss Alpina”, “Aquina” and “Prix Ga- rantie” – flavoured water for the sustai- nable private label “Coop Naturaplan” as well as soft drinks sold under the “Aquina” and “Prix Garantie” brands.
Producing a great diversity of bottles from 0.5 L to 1.5 L on a single packaging line for PET, Pearlwater Mineralquellen
(Source: Pearlwater /Sidel)
AG (Pearlwater) was determined to en- hance the efficiency of its production line as well as bottle quality by upgra- ding its PalKombi Gripping palletiser’s performance, installed by Sidel in 2011. Trusting in its original equipment manufacturer (OEM), Pearlwater were able to increase the palletiser’s relia- bility and flexibility for the handling of various pack sizes and improved overall line efficiency by 5% with better pack and pallet stability.
Palletiser retrofit for a superior per- formance and product quality
The overall performance of the pa- ckaging line as well as top efficiency and product quality can be reached with the right combination of every
Pearlwater and Sidel: A water confluence
piece of equipment of the line. To su- stain the efficiency of already running lines and the state-of-the-art opera- tion of the equipment over time it is important to maintain and optimise machine’s performance. Therefore, Pearlwater reached out to its OEM and was particularly looking at how to increase performance for the End-of- Line equipment.
After analysing the performance of the line, Sidel`s engineers identified that the main performance loss was coming from handling small bottle packs at palletisation stage. Upgrading small bottle packs conveying and rota- tion would enable to reach improved product quality and palletiser uptime. Therefore, Sidel proposed to enhan- ce bottle positioning on the palletiser with a new pack conveying and rota- tion system “Electronic Spacer”. “The upgrade for Pearlwater’s PalKombi Gripping palletiser focuses on a new packs inlet module made of modular chain conveyors across which the packs are smoothly transferred and rotated forming rows before being pushed on the pallet,” explains Danny Bollnow, Service Sales Manager at Sidel.
This new system increases palletiser
(Source: Pearlwater /Sidel)
f there is magic on this planet, it is
contained in water’, goes the quo- te by Loren Eiseley. Water is vital for life. Sourcing and packaging this liquid energy drink if a highly sophisticated process. The leading global provider of PET solutions for liquid packaging Sidel, and Pearlwater Mineralquellen AG (Pearlwater), since 2011 have been determined to enhance the efficiency of the production line as well as bottle quality by upgrading its PalKombi Grip- ping palletiser’s performance.
50 AMEFT 1 2021 www.ameft.com