555th KHS InnoPET Blomax goes to Japanese food group Meiji
The 555th Series IV stretch blow moulder from KHS has gone to the Japanese producer of milk products, Meiji Co., Ltd. The energy-efficient InnoPET Blomax Series IV, which produces 48,000 PET bottles per hour in Japan, satisfied the hygiene specifications required by Meiji’s milk beverages.
“On the Japanese market, which takes high technical requirements and flexibility for granted in conjunction with great reliability, energy efficiency is a decisive argument,” explains Matthias Gernhuber, head of Area Sales and Product Management for Asia-Pacific at KHS Corpoplast GmbH. The key factors influencing a customer’s decision to buy are thus high capacity plus the lowest possible energy consumption.
Tetsuya Kobayashi, representative of KHS’ trading partner for stretch blow moulding technology in Japan, Marubeni Techno Systems, describes what prompted Meiji to purchase plant machinery from KHS. “The machines installed to date for the low capacity range were no longer able to meet the growing demand. The local manufacturer, who up to now had been Meiji’s chosen supplier, had to pass when it came to supplying more powerful equipment.”
With its new investment Meiji also wished to cut production costs, an endeavor which chiefly entails using resources such as energy and packaging materials efficiently. To this end, the bottler first optimised the consumption of materials together with KHS, reducing it by over 30% – which in turn also lowered the amount of energy used. The cooperation to date has been so successful for both companies that Japan is already preparing for further projects. “In the future, too, KHS and Meiji will continue to work on reducing production costs,” concludes Gernhuber.
