PETpla.net Insider 07 / 2017

BOTTLE MAKING 23 PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 07/17 www.petpla.net Let’s give the bottle the right look Have you ever wondered why you buy a certain product instead of another one? The answer has to be sough in a series of elements which influence the consumer’s purchasing behaviour: quality of the product, brand popularity, aesthetic aspect of the package, its position on the shelf and much more. bottle making For Italian company SMI, many statistical data have shown that the purchase decision is determined in 95% of cases by factors related to the emotions evoked by the product, so that we can openly speak of “emo- tional buying” or “impulse buying”. An essential role in leaving an impression on the consumers’ emotions and sen- sations is played by the package, thus the more captivating and original its shape, colours, conveyed messages are, the more you draw the consum- er’s attention and interest. Nature moves The bottle designed by SMI for Al Saleh company (Iraq) is an exam- ple of a container that wants to create emotions. Everything started with the consumer’s idea of recalling natural elements to express their own feelings about respecting the environment; in this way a “green” bottle, with the repro- duction of stylised leaves on its surface incites an emotional response towards the container and the brand. The accu- rate study of the incline of the bottle “shoulder” has permitted SMI designers to create on the surface an elaborate play of veins which allows the image of the leaf to acquire a three-dimensional aspect and at the same time to cover a function of support for the container so as to ensure a greater resistance to mechanical stress. SMI, thanks to a latest generation R & D laboratory, is able to design and develop graphically a wide variety of PET containers and to give the cus- tomer’s product design a new “emo- tional” face. The SMI design centre has to date created about 1,700 containers that differ in appearance, shape, weight and size. Quality moulds and accurate testing A great design is not enough to make a great looking bottle, the appeal of a container also depends on the accuracy and precision with which the moulds used to produce it are made. To ensure its custom- ers of the highest quality containers, SMI created a specific department that produces aluminium and steel alloy moulds, suitable for use in its stretch-blow moulders and those of other manufacturers. The quality of the moulds is assured by employing an FMS line, consisting of 12 CNC machining centres. These are fully automated machine tools running nonstop 24/7, which follows computer- aided manufacturing (CAM) pro- grams. The company labs utilise vast resources for testing new technolo- gies and applications, especially in the stretch-blow moulding of preforms made of PET and other materials. The use of sophisticated equip- ment allows testing and dimensional tests of the customer’s preforms, e.g. the thickness is measured accurately by cameras and parameterisation comparison software, while polarised light equipment is used to analyse the homogeneity of the polymer. SMI has a prototyping facility that ensures rapid quality sampling. The company uses testing equipment, such as the AGR International PPT3000 tester, which tests the quality of the bottles and ensures that they meet pressure resistance and volume expansion goals. www.smigroup.it