Pepsi Plant Comes Close to Lights-Out Manufacturing

摘要

Lights-out manufacturing, where automation is so comprehensive that there's no pressing need for a human presence on site, is appealing in theory but difficult to achieve in practice. So Pepsi Bottling Ventures' new Aquafina bottling line, which requires just one operator per shift and cranks out 730 500-mL PET bottles/min, is impressive to say the least. Basically a turnkey line from Krones, the heart of the operation is the Krones Ergobloc L, which handles blow molding of PET preforms, empty-bottle labeling, filling, and capping. According to Sabri Kundakcioglu, Vice President of Engineering for Raleigh, NC-based PBV, the new line is in a Winston-Salem, NC, facility that previously had served only as a distribution center. Bottling of water had been handled on three lines elsewhere in the region. But with demand for water growing, the firm had little choice but to add capacity. The new line is the second DBF (Direct Blow Fill) operation in the firm's arsenal. But it's significantly different than the one installed in 2008, which was also from Krones. The key difference is that in the old line labels are applied to bottles downstream from filling and capping. In the Ergobloc line, the Krones labeler is tightly integrated into the bloc arrangement so that bottles are labeled immediately after they exit the blow molder.