The company required a partner that could work collaboratively to provide a reliable, high-quality PET preform system that could overcome the challenges of high-altitude injection molding in the most economical and sustainable way possible.
Tibet Glacier’s remote location means it had to manage unique supply chain issues, including difficulties with transportation of preforms and closures from industrial centres more than 1,000km away. Husky’s task was to help with all aspects of the transition, from planning through to successful start-up and beyond.
An important part of this complete solution was providing the company with a system that could productively and reliably perform under difficult operating conditions.
Having had no prior preform manufacturing experience, Tibet Glacier needed help in building its in-house operation, from conception through to successful production. This included:
Running a manufacturing operation at 4,800m above sea level in the remote mountains of Tibet would create challenges a normal bottling plant wouldn’t have to deal with. For example, at extremely high altitudes, air density is lower, which impacts the molding process. The altitude can also cause the internal temperature of the plant to drop as low as -10ºC, which can interfere with start-up, operation and shutdown.
A complete high-altitude system consisting of mold, hot runner, auxiliaries and machine was developed for Tibet Glacier’s unique environmental conditions. To run optimally, the systems were customised with several modifications, including a separate power pack with a low-pressure pump, the increase of cooling capacity and component sizing, along with specialised motor selection.
Resin drying capacity was also increased to adapt to low atmospheric pressure, and a special industrial PC with a solid state drive was required because the standard IPC hard drive is prone to failure above 3,000m.
Two Husky HyPET 225 systems, with two 48-cavity molds and two 32-cavity molds, were successfully installed and have been running optimally despite the facility’s challenging conditions. Tibet Glacier is currently producing four different bottle sizes for its 5100 premium brand, with 330ml the major category.
“Having had no prior experience in manufacturing preforms, Husky went the extra mile to ensure that we were armed with all of the knowledge necessary to effectively run our systems,” says Wallace Yu, chairman of Tibet Glacier Mineral Water. “This ultimately helped us to be more productive because we were able to be trained on these systems ahead of time, greatly reducing that learning curve.”
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