Palletizing/depalletizing

Suppliers quench Poland Spring's thirst for training

From bottle molding to palletizing, training from packaging equipment vendors is vital to mechanics at the Poland Spring, ME, bottling facility.

December 31, 2001

Converting equipment: Page 52

Converting equipment

Poland Spring promotes 'wall-to-wall' training (sidebar)

Packaging at Poland Spring

December 31, 2001

Secondary Packaging

Poland Spring promotes 'wall-to-wall' training

Management says training costs are justified by increased equipment efficiency that boosts output and by developing and retaining skilled employees.

December 31, 2001

Conveying & accumulation

Stretching the limits of aseptic packaging

Low-acid dairy products aseptically packaged in plastic bottles are common in Europe. Will Morningstar bring such technology to the U.S? See in-plant video

December 31, 2001

Conveying & accumulation

Printer presses onward with unitizing

Automatic weighing, strapping, and stretch-wrapping system unitizes loads of printed materials at Gazette Communications. Damage claims are reduced to zero.

December 31, 2001

Secondary Packaging

Early Times pours into PET

Following the success of its switch to PET from glass for Canadian Mist blended whisky in 1999, Brown-Forman Beverage Worldwide in November launched a 1.75-L PET bottle for its Early Times Kentucky whisky. Like Canadian Mist, the Early Times bottle is injection stretch/blow-molded by Schmalbach-Lubeca (Manchester, MI).

December 31, 2001

Converting equipment

Sonoco buys Smurfit core plan

EXCLUSIVE NEWS FROM OUR EUROPEAN PARTNER: SONOCO, the US-based global packaging company, has purchased Smurfit UK's core and tube converting business from Jefferson Smurfit Group. Click logo for full article.

November 30, 2001

Coding, Printing & Labeling

Labeling switch nets savings

Minute Maid is in the process of switching from in-mold labels to heat-transfer decoration on all 1-gal high-density polyethylene bottles for its popular Hi-C beverages. According to Ernest Dunlap, manager of packaging at the Houston-based beverage firm, the change aims to reduce unsaleables at retail.

November 30, 2001

Flexibles

Labels take bottles from the wine cellar to the trophy case

The annual Tag and Label Manufacturing Institute competition in October celebrated excellence in tag and p-s label design, as well as innovation in converting.

November 30, 2001

Converting equipment

Paperboard substrate

Forte™, a new packaging substrate from Westvaco (Stamford, CT) is a 36-pt solid fiber board that provides compression strength equal to or greater than F, G, or N mini-flute board.

October 31, 2001

Converting equipment

Coke 'endorses' new mold-making technology

The Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta, GA, has endorsed new technology for making tooling for injection and blow-molding equipment. The process is patented by Metallamics (Traverse City, MI) and improves the cycle times of, in this case, molding of preforms and plastic soft drink bottles.

October 31, 2001

Conveying & accumulation

X-ray system spices up on-line QA

An X-ray inspection system at Flavor Delite checks for ?anything? out of the ordinary inside canisters of seasonings, including clumps. A ?guardian angel? for the line, the system confirms packaged product weight, too.

October 31, 2001

Labels

Plastic bottles move toward aseptics

It won’t be a ‘slam dunk,’ but some experts say that aseptic filling of both high-and low-acid products into plastic bottles will gain wider acceptance across the United States.

October 31, 2001