PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2014

BOTTLING / FILLING 31 PET planet insider Vol. 15 No. 05/14 www.petpla.net of roughly 300 miles, the main sales areas being big cities like New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston. Approximately 130 trucks loaded up with freshly bottled water currently leave the company every day, with around 40 trucks delivering water from various springs in the region on a daily basis. Crossroads bottles spring water and also treated munici- pal water. With about 30 retail chains and casino operators, Crossroads has built up a broad customer base within a very short time. The company makes 80% of its sales with approxi- mately 20% of its customers. Crossroads fills a diverse range of bottles and packs these into all kinds of shrink packs for retailers and casinos. Crossroads produces and fills 8, 10, 20 and 24 ounce and 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5l bottles, process- ing the 0.5l size only on the higher capacity lines. Crossroads make 90% of their sales with the latter. Kirk Richmond went on: “We can also take action as required on our multifunctional line when it comes to shrink packs; on the 72,000bph systems, however, we only program larger shrink pack units holding 24, 28, 32, 35 or 40 containers.” Something else Crossroads didn’t want to miss were the lightweight PET bottles Silver Springs had opti- mised together with KHS. For exam- ple, the 0.5l PET bottle for Silver Springs and Crossroads currently weighs just 9.1g. At Silver Springs the weight of the 13.2g bottle was cut down to 9.1g in two stages on application of KHS’ Bottles & Shapes programme. According to Kirk and Kane Richmond the next benchmark regarding PET weight is 8g, with the two brothers aiming for a maximum weight of around 7.5g for their 0.5l PET bottle in the long term. Essential line components On all three of its KHS turnkey lines Crossroads has opted for the InnoPET BloFill monoblock which consists of an InnoPET Blomax Series IV stretch blow moulder monoblocked with the Innofill NV filling system. This choice is also the result of the good experience Silver Springs has had; back in 2008 Silver Springs was the first beverage company in the world to invest in the then newly launched monoblock system which was kitted out with an InnoPET Blomax Series III stretch blow moulder. Silver Springs also ordered the world’s first InnoPET BloFill monoblock fitted with the Inno- PET Blomax Series IV stretch blow moulder. On the newest line at Crossroads, which outputs up to 72,000bph, the InnoPET Blomax has 36 cavities, each of which can produce up to 2,250bph. The monoblock of the Inno- PET Blomax Series IV and the Innofill NV filler has been kept as simple as possible. Removing bottles from the blow station and adjusting the dis- tance of finished PET bottles to one another according to the configuration of the filling system is handled by just one modular transfer wheel. An airlock ensures that the dry area of the blow moulder is kept consistently separate from the wet area of the filler, thereby eliminating the risk of corrosion in the blow moulder. The logical conse- quence of gentle PET bottle handling is that bottles can be used which are lighter than those conveyed by an air conveyor. The filling system operates accord- ing to the principle of volumetric filling using electromagnetic induction flow- metering. Non-contact filling through a free-flow filling valve ensures micro- biological and hygienic safety. The PET bottles are sealed by the classic Innofill SV screw capper. After they have been wrapped in film, the packs are directly conveyed into the shrink tunnel. The shrink tunnel is fitted with classic electrical heating and, like all KHS shrink tun- nels, features hot air nozzle equip- ment which can be used in a variety of ways. Shrink packs are palletised on the Crossroads lines by an Innopal PB1HS with an upstream, inline robot grouping. This machinery is excep- tionally well suited for palletising sensitive goods in particular, such as shrink packs. The inline robot grouping aligns the finished shrink packs with only minimal space requirements, after which a positive-fit gripper picks up, lifts, turns and places each individ- ual shrink pack exactly in the pro- grammed position. This gives Cross- roads precision, exact reproducibility, precise alignment and gentle pack handling. The robot grouping ena- bles all current and future container and layer requirements to be easily adapted by selecting the existing layer formation or programming a new con- tainer and layer formation. Crossroads is also planning on future success. It definitely has the space, with the option to buy the hired buildings and land secured. To close, Kirk Richmond says, “Considering that there’s a huge demand for bottled water in the northeast of the US, sales at Crossroads could be even higher than at Silver Springs in the near future. Together we already rank among the top five biggest bottling plants for water in the USA. In the family we can envi- sion becoming a national presence in the water business in the medium to long term.” www.khs.com On all three of its KHS turnkey lines Crossroads has opted for the InnoPET BloFill monoblock which consists of an InnoPET Blomax Series IV stretch blow moulder monoblocked with the Innofill NV filling system, the Innopack Kisters SP Advanced shrink packer and the Innopal PB1HS palletizer with an upstream, inline robot grouping.