PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2017

INSPECTION 44 PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 09/17 www.petpla.net Managing variation simplified As part of the project, the com- pany installed the Agr Process Pilot automated blowmoulder manage- ment system with vision in both of the new KHS series IV blow- moulders that produce bottles for these lines. The Agr system incor- porates three components; the Pilot Profiler (PET material distribution measurement), Pilot Vision (visual defect detection), and the Process Pilot closed-loop control software, providing the link between the bottle measurements and blow-moulding machine controls. The Pilot Profiler measurement component relies on an array of sen- sors, located at the mould out-take, that measure material distribution on every bottle. These measurements provide continuous feedback to the Process Pilot controls which use this data to continuously adjust the blow- moulder to maintain desired material distribution regardless of even minor plant temperature changes or other variations that may impact material distribution. This configuration enables the control and operation of the blow- moulding system with simultaneous measurements of bottle thickness and control of the sealing surface. Accord- ing to Kamil Banaśkiewicz, Technical Project Coordinator, it proved very beneficial in terms of dealing with the long-standing problem of material dis- tribution variability due to the temper- ature fluctuations of the preforms. The Process Pilot system’s reac- tion to temperature variations of materials (preforms) is quite useful. Previously, any change in preform temperature forced the operator to adjust machine parameters and to evaluate the bottle. Currently, the adjustment is carried out automatically through the Process Pilot. The Agr system, with target models saved in the memory, reacts flexibly in two ways. It either adjusts the machine parameters automati- cally, if necessary, or rejects non-com- pliant bottles which exceed certain dimension ranges (in other words, have much, too much or not enough material). Those bottles never make it to the market. Addressing the challenges of the wasp-waist bottle ‘Wasp-waist’ - Distinct bottle shape for a unique brand The Cisowianka bottle has a very special shape, the ‘wasp-waist’ in the middle. It was designed to permit con- sumers to hold the bottle firmly but com- fortably and pour the water in a safe manner. The need to manage material distribution with precision became even more critical with an effort to reduce the weight of the wasp-waist bottles for the Cisowianka brand. The wasp-waist fea- ture did not come without challenges. While going through the light weighting process on this bottle, the company dis- covered that there was a certain weight limit they had reached with the preforms that they were unable to cross. When the weight of the preforms was reduced beyond this point, the bottle would bend when held by the label panel due to lim- itations in material in the waist region. It became evident that with the light weighted bottle, the material that was available had to be in the right place to avoid these problems, and the waist section was especially critical. The Process Pilot systems, installed on the new lines, were a critical compo- nent in the light weighting effort on this bottle. As experiments were performed with a number of different preform weights, the Process Pilot system was able to profile the material distribution, telling them precisely where the mate- rial would flow when the bottle was blown. This was particularly valuable in order to understand how the material in the critical areas of the waist region would be distributed. After considerable experimenta- tion, they settled on new weights for the product that were lighter yet would preserve the feel and sup- port the wasp-waist design, without compromising the quality. This current Cisowianka bottle is produced in three 1.5l formats, using a 30.5g preform for carbonated product, a 28.5g for the lightly carbonated product, and 27g for the non-carbonated version. Agr Pilot Profiler with Process Pilot automated blowmoulder control manages mate- rial distribution for the production of the Cisowianka ‘wasp-waist’ bottle on KHS series IV blowmoulder