PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2017

INSPECTION 42 PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 09/17 www.petpla.net Agr system takes sting out of producing the Cisowianka ‘Wasp-waist’ bottle by: Ewa Prokulewicz, Sales Coordinator, Agr Europe, Aleksander Broda, Regional Director CE Europe & UK, Agr Europe, David Dineff, Global Marketing Director, Agr International, Inc. A three-year collaboration with Agr has helped Nałęczów Zdrój S.A. take a proactive approach towards their quality man- agement program with the integration of Agr’s Process Pilot automated process control system. With Agr’s assistance, Nałęczów Zdrój S.A. was able to overcome the environmen- tal and quality issues that challenged the production of their unique ‘wasp-waist’ bottle for the Cisowianka product line. Nałęczów Zdrój S.A. is a com- pany with a tradition that extends more than 35 years in the business of bottling water. The plant is located in southeastern Poland in the village of Drzewce, approximately 6 kilometers from the spa town of Nałęczów noted for its “healing waters”. Waters from the Nałęczów aquifers are exception- ally pure and have very low sodium content. The Nałęczów Zdrój plant sits atop these same aquifers and draws from five locations to produce its three brands: Poland’s most popular mineral water Cisowianka (together with Cisowianka Perlage), export brand Perlage and Nałęczów Zdrój. The mineral water is sold not only in Poland, but also all around the world – USA, France, Italy, Japan, China and many others. Demand for products of Nałęczów Zdrój has been growing rapidly. At the same time, the challenge of meet- ing production while maintaining the quality of their packaging has grown along with this demand. Facing these challenges, the company turned to Agr International to provide a solution to managing the quality and, at the same time, production efficiency of their bottle blowing operation for the Cisowianka product. Bottling operations Nałęczów Zdrój operates one glass filling line for non carbonated Cisowianka and seven PET lines for a production capacity of 2,800,000 bottles per day across a broad volume range. Five PET lines are used for filling 1.5l bottles, the remaining two for the 0.5l, 0.3l and 0.7l ‘sport cap’ bottles, and for the 0.7l Perlage bot- tles, respectively. All PET bottles are produced in house, blown on the spot from preforms sourced from third- party suppliers, including those pro- duced on two KHS Blowmax Series IV blow-moulding machines, the newest editions to their production operation. Quality is of prime importance With such large production vol- umes, regular and accurate quality control procedures performed at all stages of the production process are the key to maintaining the high qual- ity standards that Nałęczów Zdrój is famous for. This includes not only the purity and quality of the water but also the packaging that protects the prod- uct, which must maintain its pristine appearance through the chain of distri- bution into the hands of the consumer. Grzechorz Nachowicz, Head of Technical Department at Nałęczów Zdrój, explains that they take qual- ity seriously with rigid quality control routines applied in the production of Cisowianka. “In a nutshell, our quality control is a three-step process. Stage one is the operator’s self-check. Stage two takes place at the quality control department, where the quality control personnel conduct an end-to-end check, including preforms, caps and labels to verify that they are suitable for production purposes. And stage three, which takes place either simul- taneously with the production process Cisowianka 1.5 l ‘wasp-waist’ bottle for lightly carbonated water – made from a 30.5g preform