High speed with lightweight bottles

OBVIOUSLY, it's not the water cascading down the Niagara Falls that finds its way into the bottles of the Niagara Bottling Co. But the choice of name was a clever one, symbolizing as it does the power and purity of the American epitome for water as such. For Andrew Peykoff Sr., it was also instrumental in making the American dream of 搈ilkman to millionaire?come true for himself and his family. Today, his son Andy Peykoff II is at the helm of the company, which has boasted average annual growth rates of over 40% during the past ten years and today sells around five billion (yes, 5,000,000,000) fills a year. Niagara Bottling is operating what is meanwhile its tenth complete line from Krones, has repeatedly implemented a twin-line concept for achieving the highest of outputs, at 72,000 containers per hour and line, and has for years now been leading the market when it comes to container lightweighting, most recently by introducing a 9.9-gram 0.5-liter Eco-Air Bottle. Commissioning of two hotfill lines earlier this year has opened up state-of-the-art options for diversification. Wanting to offer the same quality as the big national brands but at a more favorable price, it was important to offset the main factors pushing up costs ?freight charges and PET prices ?Niagara Bottling set up seven facilities across the nation, Niagara Bottling now has an installed capacity of 8 billion fills a year. "So now, with our strategically placed new plants and our focus on environmentally friendly packaging, we can competitively deliver anywhere in the United States and go head to head versus our national brand competitors," explains Peykoff II. 揂nd for cutting packaging costs, we抳e come up with our patented lightweight bottle and closure designs which both cost less to produce and are more environmentally friendly." Eight weeks to a lightweight bottle In a detailed briefing in spring of 2007, Niagara's bottle design team shared their preform design for the world's lightest bottle with Krones?Bottle Design Plastics Division, and also specified the boundary conditions for the bottle design. What was clear right from the start was that the lightweighting process was to focus on the 0.5-liter bottle, since this container accounts for a major portion of the production volume at Niagara. The company wanted to go well below the previous weight of 12.5 grams while nonetheless maintaining a top load of no less than 350 N and excellent pallet utilization. What's more, the client wanted grip stability to be at least as good as the heavier bottle. After Niagara's approval, the various tests involved were run with specifically produced sample bottles, particularly in the context of air conveyors and labeling, plus closing technology, while also checking the pressures obtaining during bottle transport and labeling, and handling in general. Within eight short weeks, all of the joint development work for a lightweight PET container had been successfully concluded, making Niagara Bottling the first bottlers in the world to offer their customers a 0.5-liter bottle weighing a mere 9.9 grams. And before that, for almost five years Niagara had been the only vendor on the market with a 12.5-gram bottle. Andy enumerates the math: 揊or four billion fills, 2.6 grams of weight less per bottle produce around 10,000 tons of PET saved in a year which significantly reduces the carbon footprint of our products while also allowing us to provide lower prices to our customers.?This corresponds to $8 million annually based on an $800 per ton price of PET. Five new high-speed PET lines With the conclusion of the lightweighting project, Niagara placed orders in the summer of 2007 with Krones for five high-speed PET lines: For the existing plant in Allentown, Pennsylvania, NiagaraHighsnobiety Style