With a new plant in the works designed specifically to achieve maximum efficiency, Joachim Lehmann, president of Naturally Vitamins, Scottsdale, AZ, is looking forward to returning to Las Vegas in October for Pack Expo Las Vegas 99.
After Lehmann attended the last Pack Expo in Las Vegas, key packaging machinery purchased at the show resulted in the company increasing its packaging speed and productivity by more than 100%. Pack Expo Las Vegas 99 is scheduled for Oct. 18 to 21 at the Sands Convention Center. The show is sponsored by the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (Arlington, VA).
Naturally Vitamins had been struggling with antiquated equipment when Lehmann went to Las Vegas to find a new bottle unscrambler. "The unscrambler we were using then was about ten years old," explains Lehmann. "It was slow, inefficient, and lacking important features that would make us more productive." The older model was not computerized or automated.
"We needed a machine that would stop automatically when bottles were not standing upright," Lehmann recalls. "Our machine was labor-intensive because someone always had to monitor it." In addition, the aging machine's operation was unreliable and slow, often creating bottlenecks that limited the line's output per minute.
A bottle unscrambler from Pace Packaging (Fairfield, NJ) purchased at the '97 show increased line speed from 20 to 80 bpm, and requires less labor. "The Pace machine is fully automatic. It runs faster, stops if a bottle gets stuck, and has an air washing feature that is necessary to provide a superior product to our customers," says Lehmann.
