PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2020

MAINTENANCE PETplanet Insider Vol. 21 No. 09/20 www.petpla.net 26 Bottle jams never again by Heike Fischer CHP engineering company is offering a wide range of lubrication solutions, specific for the food and beverage industries all over the world. CHP’s activities are grouped into four stra- tegic business units: the MicroDry Slat lubrication technology, the MicroDry Air coating tech- nology, the MicroDry all-in-one hygienic solution (CIP) and full service package for installa- tion, maintenance, consumables, parts & accessories. For the PET industry - which had been a very successful market for the company since 2004 - CHP devel- oped a specific solution to prevent bottle jams for factories working with air conveyors: the MicroDry Air coat- ing technology. Big players within the beverage industry are using CHP’s technology, e.g. Coca-Cola or Nestlé Waters. PETplanet Insider talked with Pieter Turck, Founder, previous CEO of CHP and Executive Director since 1 st of January 2020 about accepted problems in the production process that can be easily solved and finally, about their future plans for CHP. PETplanet: Mr Turck, CHP is now active in the PET industry for more than 15 years. What was the trigger to turn to this branch of industry? What were the challenges and incentives for this step? Turck: In the first years CHP focused on the cardboard business with MicroDry, mainly on packaging lines supplied by Tetra Pak and SIG Combibloc. Since some of our major accounts also operate PET lines, we were triggered by these customers to use the same technical platform of MicroDry to substantially reduce the operational costs and increase line efficiency on the wet lubricated PET bottling lines. These successes allowed us to gain market share quickly at typical bottling companies as Coca-Cola, Nestlé Waters, etc. PETplanet: How much is the PET sales share in the CHP Group now? Turck: The sales of the Micro- Dry PET Slat, MicroDry PET AIO and MicroDry PET Air contribute for about 81% of the global revenue. PETplanet: Mr Turck, what do you think are the biggest problems when working with PET containers? Where does CHP technology come in? Turck: To answer this question, we need to differentiate on PET Slat and PET Air: PET Slat: Line efficiency has always been a big concern and becomes even more critical for our customers as bottles get lighter, are more frequently composed of recycled plastics or have shapes creating higher instabilities during conveying. The lower, stable and per-conveyor tuneable friction values between bottle and belt surface differentiate MicroDry from the conventional wet and half-dry solutions available on the market. The lower consumption- and mainte- nance costs and the better hygienic working conditions (safety, hygiene and environment) do create extra value for our customers. PET Air: More than 80% of the PET air conveyors show bottle jams that have a substantial negative impact on the line efficiency of the bottle-filling machine. Customers often use stand-by manpower to monitor the total line to release the jammed bottle-trains. The MicroDry PET Air solution offers a full automatic coating solution that primarily eliminates those jams and also reduces the operating costs. The pump- and control unit of these solutions can also be used for the PET Slat MicroDry solution. An extra added value when upgrading the filling line after experiencing the many advantages of MicroDry. PETplanet: Mr Turck would you be so kind to explain CHPs specific MicroDry Air coating technology? What are the specific advantages and what has been improved over the years since launching it? Turck: In most cases we eliminate all bottle jams. Since launching this solution in 2005, we could help many plant and line managers to eliminate their bottle jams. While installing the MicroDry Air system over the years, the customer also experienced more about all the additional benefits of the system. Once the MicroDry Air system was installed, the responsible manager could lower the fan blow- ing power and thus report substantial energy savings. As a consequence, the noise level of the air conveyor in operation came down substantially, which increased the quality of the work environment. An important topic in many Health and Safety commit- tees. PETplanet: Mr Turck, what about implementing the MicroDry Air coating technology into an existing line? Turck: Based on the many years of experience our engineering team designs and produces in a very effi- cient way the customised inserts for every lay-out and type of the PET Air conveyor line. The pump- and control unit as well as the distribu- tion system of the coating agent are well designed to meet different customer expectations and can be parameterised for each installation. The total installation time, including commissioning, of a typical PET Air conveyor line of about 150 metres length is maximum one week, from which the line shut-down time is about one day (6 to 10 hrs). A longer line with multiple blow moulders and Pieter Turck, Founder, previous CEO of CHP and Executive Director of CHP