250 people from 45 different nationalities were invited to attend the food and beverage plastic day held at their impressive facilities in Imola. Mr Vezio Bernardi, general director, welcomed the attendees with a brief introduction sharing the Sacmi Group history and facts. The welcoming was followed by Iacopo Bianconcini, closures and containers beverage marketing manager, who outlined the programme for the day. The morning session included a series of well detailed and interactive presentations by the management team showing all the latest technologies on offer to supply their global customers.
After the lunch break, we had the opportunity to visiting their state of the art production facilities and see how every single component gets transform into machines aiming at increasing productivity, reducing energy and OEE. The plant visit included: plastic cap production, preform production and blowing forming, Vision inspection systems and a laboratory tour.
The day ended with a Q&A session followed by an aperitif (great prosecco among the choices of course) and a superb Italian gala dinner at Imola’s palazzo Riario o Sersanti, once the residence of Girolamo Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV and Lord of Imola.
Highlights of the day
The H.E.R.O project – High Efficiency Resource Optimizer – Sacmi research laboratory is dedicated to developing innovative technologies for resource saving in all stages of production. Concentrating on intelligent energy consumption and management, logistic optimisation improving handling raw materials aiming at waste reduction maximising the use of technology.
From pellet to pallet
This term was used by the management team in several occasions through the day when explaining the wide offering of customised solutions. Starting from the top: In today Beverage manufacturing caps and closures are more dynamic and interactive. It was great to see how the continuous compression moulding for plastic caps developed by Sacmi allows manufacturers to be more creative with colours and design on the top facilitating colour change within minutes. The caps are inspected by their Cube Eye machine, which is a computed tomographic high resolution X-ray technology. The technology can be used in multiple application within the food & beverage industry. Furthermore, the ‘Logico’ tool (software for optimisation) complements the supervision of machines identifying any problems even from remote terminal such as mobile technologies. The data is gathered for further dissemination and diagnosis.
The quality control systems for PET performs are carried out by high speed inspection machines capable to check op to 36,000 pieces per hour as it is in the case on the PVS024 or up to 50,000 pieces with the PVS003. The former has been design to inspect performs after injection moulding or before blow moulding.
PET performs by injection and stretch blow moulding
Beverage manufacturers would have the choice between two technologies available from Sacmi. The main benefits are the fast format changeover, energy saving and small footprint. The technology is supported by a worldwide network of after sales service.
The Stretch Blowing Moulding technology is an efficient solution for manufacturers who would be moulding their own bottles. Benefiting clients from a double cavity, rapid format change-over and an integrated upstream and downstream solution. The machines feature from 6 to 18 blow moulding stations representing production of more than 48,000 bottles per hour in a standard half little container. Additionally, the machine has the possibility of installing a mould with one cavity for larger bottles – up to three litres – or two for smaller containers up to 60cl.
Manufacturing centre
Top engineering and quality control was witnessed through the plant visit. For me it was interesting to see that all the components are designed, made, assembled and tested within the facilities. Perhaps a manufacturing model that should be kept for living standards and economic growth.
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024