New ways

Competition amongst bottling plants is on the increase throughout the world. They are all being forced to reduce costs and raise productivity. Disruptive downtimes to the filling equipment should be ruled out as far as possible and the reject rate remain low.

What if there is interference in the filling section? How can you ensure that the bottles which have just been filled but not yet sealed do not end as spoilage? And how can you put this into practice without wasting valuable space on your premises? HEUFT SYSTEMTECHNIK GMBH offers a completely new method for this which is unique in its form.

The bottles already in a filler have to be sealed if the labeller stops in order to retain the quality of the product. This is not possible with a mechanical filler/labeller block and the bottles which are affected have to be rejected. This task was solved by providing corresponding buffer areas on multi-chain conveyors in the case of older, spread out systems. The bottles were collected together after the filler, then separated again and transported to the labeller. This required a great deal of room and the accumulation of the bottles resulted in them being subjected to wear as well as an increase to the level of noise. Another solution had to be found for the electronic filler/labeller block operation which is particularly space-saving, cost-effective and handles bottles carefully.

HEUFT SYSTEMTECHNIK GMBH has solved the task with the HEUFT synchron TX, a modern conveyor control system with a parallel guided buffer area. Here all the bottles still in the filler are diverted when the labeller stops. This is a conveyor, the bypass, which is guided parallel to the normal production line. The bottles are guided separately so that accumulation is not necessary. The filler starts again as soon as the interference has been dealt with. The bypass is emptied at the same time. The normal conveyor starts again when the last bottle has left it. This complex control system is so accurate that the first bottles from the filler join up again exactly here and enter the labeller without any disruptive gaps.

"Our competitors were sceptical whether we would be able to realize our ideas in this way" explained Rainer Atzorn, Line Control Supervisor at HEUFT SYSTEMTECHNIK GMBH "but we proved them wrong. We always believed we would manage it. The system was used for the first time at the Lammsbraeu brewery in Neumarkt, Germany; those responsible there were very satisfied both with its installation and function (please see the report "Without friction")."