Slaking a thirst for real-time data

Ocean Spray's new Nevada plant just outside Las Vegas boasts the latest in on-line data acquisition and communications systems. Can/glass line is a good example.

Pw 26023 Invmanisals 1

Ocean Spray Cranberries operates plants in six states, but until recently it had no manufacturing muscle in the fast-growing Southwest. That changed dramatically last September when the Lakeville, MA, firm officially opened its $50 million, 200ꯠ-sq-ft plant outside Las Vegas in Henderson, NV.

On three lines-multi-serve, aseptic, single-serve-the plant is capable of packaging all 16 Ocean Spray fruit juices and drinks as well as a variety of aseptically packaged concentrates. A look at the single-serve line illustrates much of what makes the Henderson plant special. The line can fill both aluminum cans (5.5- and 11.5-oz sizes) and glass bottles (10 or 16 oz). Targeted speeds are 500/min for 16-oz glass, 600/min for 10-oz glass, and 1ꯠ/min for 11.5-oz cans. Thus far no production of 5.5-oz cans has been scheduled. These small cans are used mostly in foodservice settings, and Ocean Spray will begin running them later this year.

"We were driven to create a multi-package line because we wanted high speeds from a capacity perspective but we knew we wouldn't have huge volumes until later in the plant's life," says project manager Greg Raco. One way to ensure high-speed filling is to install dedicated lines, but this was considered unacceptable, says Raco, because it would have meant tying up too much capital and then watching those assets sit idle for several years as volume was building.

"Keep in mind that single-serve packaging is still quite new for Ocean Spray," says Raco. "Multi-serve containers are what we're more experienced at. A lot of our growth in single-serve will be in the future. So if we had gone into production with dedicated high-speed can and glass lines in 1994, the lines probably would have been about 40% utilized for several years."

When demand for product in cans and glass outstrips the current line's ability to keep pace, one of the two fillers will be moved to its own line, and at that point the Henderson plant will indeed have dedicated lines for glass and aluminum. But only when they're justified.

Until then, Henderson is the only Ocean Spray plant that organizes filling lines by container size, not by material. In its other plants, all glass bottle sizes are filled on a single line. At Henderson, the company will enjoy substantial improvements in efficiency and reductions in changeover time by grouping multiserve glass and plastic bottles on one line, single-serve glass and aluminum on another line.

Changeover goals

"We had clear-cut goals in terms of changeover and operating efficiency," says Raco, "and to meet those goals we felt we should avoid coping with a changeover from 10-oz glass to 48-oz glass. As we looked into it, we realized that the similarly-sized containers, whether 11.5-oz aluminum or 10- or 16-oz glass, all had fairly consistent dimensions and shared similar equipment." So large glass and large plastic bottles go on one line and small containers stay on the single-serve line.

As for equipment that makes up the single-serve line, "There's nothing earth-shattering about the individual machines on this line," says Raco. "In fact, we deliberately avoided 'bleeding edge' technology where the machines are concerned. We picked winners from our experience in other plants and then assembled the best line possible."

Because both bottles and cans run on the line, it incorporates two fillers and plenty of conveyor trackwork that takes containers through or around a filler according to need. Elsewhere, preprinted cans have to be diverted around a bottle labeler and bottles are diverted around a plastic ring carrier applicator. Again, diverter gates on conveyors take care of this. In either case, the containers eventually wind up on the infeed conveyor of the same tray packer, supplied by Standard-Knapp (Portland, CT).

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