The portable operation can be moved as needed.
“It’s like a U.S. water bottling plant that just happens to be located outside the U.S.,” says Wilson. The line operators are International Bottled Water Assn.-trained civilians, Wilson points out.
The operation comprises two cargo containers, one from Culligan Intl., United Kingdom, containing a reverse-osmosis water purification system piped to the second container. It’s a HEPA filtered, Class 10ęŻ cleanroom that houses the bottling line. The straight-line bottling operation was assembled by Filler Specialties using its Model GWFS-63 filler-capper, a six-station volumetric filler and three-station capper that fills the bottles and applies the 28-mm screw cap. Upstream of the filler-capper is an Auto Labe Model 110 labeler with a 4’’ wrap station and infeed metering device that applies a pressure-sensitive label printed with the Culligan label. After labeling, the bottles go through a rinser.
Bottles are hand-fed onto a 3’’-wide conveyor that leads inside the bottling line container. Filled bottles exit the container and are hand-packed into boxes that are sealed on a semi-automatic taper. Boxes are then manually palletized.
“The line was intentionally made to be simple,” Wilson says. “There’s not a lot of maintenance available over there. So far it’s worked slick.”
Nightly, the systems are secured against bioterrorism, Wilson says: “Since it’s containerized, we can lock and seal everything up including steel plates over openings.
“The concept is a good one,” adds Wilson, “and we are considering a second, duplicate system.” —RL
