Niagara Bottling, a private label bottled water supplier, has installed Sidel complete PET line at its facility in Salt Lake City, US, as part of its efforts to increase productivity.

Niagarabottling

Image: Niagara Bottling has installed Sidel complete PET line at its facility in Salt Lake City. Photo: courtesy of Sidel.

Sidel’s complete PET line includes two Super Combis, which are installed with EasyFEED compact ground-level preform and Gebo Cermex conveying and end-of-line equipment.

The complete PET line helps Niagara Bottling to produce two million extra cases per year.

With multiple facilities across the US and Mexico, Niagara Bottling is said to cover more than 40 different brands.

The preforms are lifted by an elevator column to only 2.5m from the hopper. Later, they will be sorted and vertically driven into the bowl of a rotary unscrambler

Placed at the edge of a rotating table and supported by the neck flange, the preforms are moved onto a rail by a filtered airflow.

The performs are driven by two motorized and food-grade brush belts up to the infeed blowing wheel, instead of traditional gravimetric infeed rails.

Sidel EasyFEED will allow PET water bottle producers to manufacture 82,000 bottles per hour, enabling to increase the production.

Niagara already operates brand-new roll-fed labeler, which handles lightweight containers and ultra-thin labels.

Sidel said the Super Combis can be used in blowing, filling, labelling, and capping applications. The Gebo Cermex high speed shrink-wrapping system helps to deliver quality packs, while the fully accessible low level palletiser with robotic layer preparation at the infeed allows non-stop production.

Niagara Bottling manufacturing executive vice president Bill Hall said: “By keeping operations at ground level, removing the impact of gravity from the feeding process, and using motorised, food-grade brush belts – to move the preforms into the blow moulder – the EasyFEED preform feeder ensures greater control over the production.

“As a result, we have seen OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) improvements, which are worth about 2% more produced bottles per year according to our estimations. In a line like the one embedding EasyFEED and the Sidel Super Combis, this translates to 2 million cases per year of extra productivity.”