Fast, gentle handling of glass bottles keeps tray-packing up to speed

New Wave Beverage Co. is an independent bottler. Like others of its breed - and unlike the in-house huge-volume bottling lines of the big drink companies the company's work load varies continually and it is always searching for new ways to improve its ability to serve the needs of new customers.

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February of this year, for instance, the co-packer introduced a new tray former/shrink wrapper from Douglas Machine Corp. into its largest Arizona Iced Tea bottling line, eliminating a bottleneck that had limited production to 16 to 18 cases per minute. Today, the line produces an average of 40 cases per minute, and breakage of the tea's glass bottles during packing is down significantly.

'This Douglas equipment raises our efficiency and lowers our unit costs,' says plant operations manager Rick Page. 'It will pay for itself in a year or so. That gain lets us invest in other equipment that will speed up the line.'

New Wave has ordered a new 108-valve filler that will supply the Douglas equipment, replacing the 72-valve filler currently on line. That will increase output even more, and give New Wave three full filling lines, with 60-, 72- and 108-valve fillers. This fits in well with the New Wave strategy as a contract bottler, of keeping its capabilities as flexible as possible to accommodate the widest possible range of assignments.

'The Douglas machine offers us flexibility that fits right in with our operation,' adds Page. 'It can pack eight in a tray, or 12 or 24 or even 20, if needed.' Currently, New Wave is packing 12- and 24-bottle trays.

From some of its customers, the bottler receives prelabeled bottles to be filled. From Arizona Iced Tea, the company receives empty bottles, ingredients and labels, and it completes the entire filling operation from washing bottles and mixing ingredients (including some it provides itself) to tray packing and shrink wrapping.

Dramatic Drop in Breakage

In addition to its higher speed, the new tray former/shrink wrapper is gentle in its handling of the Arizona Iced Tea 20-ounce glass bottles. In this 'non-impact' operation, trays are formed on three sides, after which accumulated bottles are pushed onto the tray. The fourth side is raised and glued, and the tray moves downstream to where a shrink sleeve is applied and pushed into a shrink tunnel.

The entire tray packing and shrink wrapping operation is on one level. There is no dropping or shaking of bottles as in drop-packing operations. Page points out that this results in significant savings, because when a bottle does break, New Wave's policy is to destroy the entire case to eliminate potential problems, from glass slivers in the case to unsightly stains on neighboring bottles and the case itself.

'We don't even try to wash down bottles from damaged cases,' says Page. 'With this new system, breakage at the packing end of the line has improved 65%, which saves the breakage loss itself, the labor of moving cases out of the line when there is a breakage problem, and so on.'

The continuous-motion case packer runs at speeds of up to 110 trays per minute, giving New Wave still more 'room to grow' over the current 40 tray-per-minute packing rate it achieves with the 72-valve filler. The Model SR7 shrink-wrapping system features a single-roll wrapping system that wraps and seals without heat seal bars. Trays are conveyed over the leading edge of a precut length of film, which is carried over the tray to form a lap seal on the tray bottom before the tray enters the heat seal tunnel.

Since its installation, the new operation has lived up to its promise: higher production speed, lower breakage costs and the flexibility that puts New Wave in a position to win more contracts from a wider range of customers.

For more information from Douglas Machine Corp., call (800) 387-6552.