PETpla.net Insider 12 / 2015

BOTTLE MAKING 15 PET planet insider Vol. 16 No. 12/15 www.petpla.net lowing years were also repaired in this way until the team finally estab- lished that it had disassembled and reassembled the plants completely independently, consequently improv- ing not only cost burden but also the durability. With this knowledge and accumu- lated expertise, Terekas started the serial production of its first own blow moulding machines. It made them from standard components, with the declared aims of simplifying main- tenance processes on-site at customers’ facilities and creating greater flexibility. The company now uses several milling machines to produce all the components needed for its blow moulding equip- ment and packages them in a housing design that one could definitely describe as some- what futuristic. Terekas has 120 employ- ees in total, including the two founding brothers, of course: Juozas Maksvytis is CEO and Almantas Maksvytis is Director of Commerce. The blow moulding machines are today sold to customers in (among other countries and regions) West- ern Europe, USA and Canada. The company offers relatively broad range of equipment with 1-6 cavities for volumes from 100ml to 10l and for 15-120mm necks, including jars, hot fill containers, bot- tles with integrated handle or special and custom-made designs. One hundred million bot- tles in total are produced at its Kretinga plant every year. It purchases standard preforms from European suppliers but also produces special preform types itself and offers them to the market, with barrier technology if required. Its own preforms range from 38mm for hot-fill to 83mm diameter twist- off for standard metal lids, and in weight sizes from 30-74g for a variety of applications in juices, sauces, herring, etc.The annual output is 100 million. The preforms are usually supplied to customers as an integral part of the package for customers buying blowing machines. “Being a PET bottle producer our- selves helps us better understand the blowing machinery as we can actually test our equipment in serial produc- tion, and make reliable decisions about engineering”, Juozas Maksvytis explains and adds: “When it comes to high speed production, we are com- pared to established EU brands. How- ever in the segment of flexible blowing machines we see little competition.” As for the future? We were told that the company plans to invest continuously. Terekas’ plans for 2016, for example, include the launch of a visual in-line test system to analyse the quality of preforms. www.terekas.lt