Simplifying Customization of PET Bottles

PREFERENTIAL heating in blow-molding machines is generally used to produce highly technical packages with complex designs at low annual production volumes. These bottles require a high degree of technical skill as well as flawless quality. The preferential heating process is ideal when the ratio between the large and small sides of a package is greater than 1.4. Selective heating of the preform is done via a system of reflectors that generate successive zones of shadow and reflection, thus ensuring that heat distribution perfectly matches the bottle design requirements. In addition, continuous control of preform transfer enables its specific orientation to be maintained as it makes its way to the blow-molding step. The preferential heating process ensures identical stretching on opposite faces, with perfect control of thickness. Thanks to its wide process window, highly precise adjustments can be made to obtain the best possible temperature profile for maximum angular precision of the preform in the mold and to ensure optimum quality for the bottle. Customized and Complex Shapes The requirement for flexible blow-molding machines that can efficiently produce a variety of simple and complex packages with minimal changeover downtime is met with the SBO Compact Preferential Heating from Sidel. First demonstrated at Pack Expo in Chicago in November, this linear blow molder produces flat bottles and complex shapes in PET, at production rates up to 5,600 bottles per hour. However, it can also be quickly configured to run standard production bottles. The first SBO 4 Compact Preferential Heating blow molder is already up and running at Novapak, a leading US manufacturer of small-to-medium volumes of medium- to large-size plastic bottles (8 oz. & up). For more than a decade, this American bottler has specialized in PET packaging for household goods, lawn & garden, automotive products, personal care and food & beverage. Since Novapak requires rapid commercialization, customized designs and high package performance, it has developed leading, diversified, and efficient PET manufacturing platforms that include integrated product design, project management, internal and external bottle preform manufacturing, custom and stock bottle production and decorating. The company leverages industry-leading capabilities in speed to market as well as unique packages in specific value-added niches through its custom bottle offerings, stock programs and preform business. 揃ottle design is very important, it's really the identity of the product. Brand owners want to have their own image, their own design. And quality goes without saying," says Alexander Magyar, vice president of Operations at Novapak. “We are very pleased with the processing of the machine and the resulting quality of the bottles. We know that when we design a bottle, the machine can do it," he adds. Molding Flexibility Machine flexibility is another important aspect, because owing to the diversity of models, production runs are short. 揙ur average run is two days,?Magyar explains. “We have over 100 stock bottles available to anybody and close to 350 customer shapes that are specifically for one customer. With the number of molds we have, we want to get the flexibility to produce bottles with one machine, even if we抮e not running preferential heating.? Though fully optimized for preferential heating, this new SBO can also be run for standard production, with a simple reconfiguration of the machine that takes less than 30 minutes. In addition, Quick Change molds and 損erso?parts reduce format changeover times to 15 minutes. This time gain helps to reduce the time required for new bottles to reach the market, which is a key parameter for Novapak's customers. Performance Workhorse Because it is based on the same linear technology as the SBO 4 Compact blow molder, the greatestNike