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Craft brewer automates to grow

From an overhead depalletizer that handles both cans and bottles to a robotic case packer that greatly reduces the risk of broken bottles, new capabilities at Troegs are impressive.

THE STUFFER. Freshly erected corrugated cases convey directly beneath empty paperboard six-pack carriers so the carriers can be inserted into the cases.
THE STUFFER. Freshly erected corrugated cases convey directly beneath empty paperboard six-pack carriers so the carriers can be inserted into the cases.

β€œSeems like Troegs has been under construction since we launched in 1997. We embrace that mindset of constant reevaluation and modifying as we go.”
That’s how John Troegs, who established Troegs Brewery with his brother just before the new millennium, sums up the Pennsylvania craft brewer’s history thus far. From modest beginnings they’ve grown to the point where they produced 55,000 barrels of beer in 2013. Originally located in Harrisburg, the company moved in 2011 to Hershey, PA, a stone’s throw from Hersheypark family theme park. Helping Troegs relocate their existing bottling line was Conveyor & Automation Technologies, Inc., whose Mike Tymowczak proved invaluable.

β€œWhen Mike’s team helped us move and reconfigure our old line from Harrisburg, they did it incredibly fast,” says Troegner. β€œMike has a lot of experience in a lot of plants, so when he recommended even modest adjustments in a conveyor connection or a sensor or a variable frequency drive, it made a big difference. When we started producing in Hershey, it was basically the same equipment we had in Harrisburg. But in Hershey, it was 200 or 300 percent more efficient.

β€œThen when it came time to install a new bottling line here in Hershey, Mike bid on it and we liked his proposal. Where major pieces of equipment like filler or labeler were concerned, he didn’t select those, we did. But Conveyor & Automation integrated everything and made it all work together. It becomes all the more impressive when you consider that while they were in the middle of designing the new bottling line, I sprung a new canning line on them that shares space and even some equipment with the bottling line.”

The new bottling line Troegner refers to has been running since August 2013. Hard on its heels came the canning line, which went into commercial production in December. As if that weren’t enough, the brewery also installed at about the same time a new rinser/filler/capper for cork and cage bottles in 375- and 750-mL sizes. Few American craft brewers release beers in this fermented format, where bottles resemble champagne bottles. But Troegs is known for pushing the boundaries, so it comes as no surprise that fermented beer in cork and cage bottles have been added to their repertoire.

The cork and cage line is the least automated of the three new lines, and in some ways it isn’t a β€œline” at all but rather a standalone monoblock rinsing/filling/closing machine provided by CFT. The same Italian machinery manufacturer supplied the filling equipment on both the new bottling line and the new canning line. Why an Italian machinery builder when, as everyone knows, beer is all about Germany? Troegner explains.

β€œA lot of the filling equipment for companies our size is coming out of Italy. When we learned that CFT would be able to provide filling equipment for all three of the new lines we had in mind, naturally it caught our attention. We also liked that their machines would share a great many spare parts as well as the same operating system. And then there was the flexibility they brought to the picture. Keep in mind that we were asking for filling equipment to fill six sizes: 375- and 750-mL cork & cage, 12-oz and 22-oz bottles, and 12- and 16-oz cans. As we talked with friends in the craft brewing network, we kept hearing good things about CFT’s ability, which is why we gravitated toward them.”

Among the things that make the new bottling and canning lines so intriguing is the fact that they share the same high-level Priority One depalletizer. β€œIt’s a used piece of equipment that we bought online,” says Troegner. β€œPriority One came in here when we first installed it, plugged in their computer, and in a couple of hours it was humming along. It had been used for PET bottles at 900 per min. If anything we had to slow it down a bit.”
Like most craft brewersβ€”even fast-growing ones like Troegsβ€”blinding speeds are not a necessity. Troegs runs its 12-oz bottles at 230/min and 12-oz cans at 177/min.

Bottles or cans
Sharing the same depalletizer for cans as they do for bottles, Troegs can only run one or the other. On the day of our visit, 12-oz bottles were in production, so we’ll follow that path for the most part and inject observations about can filling toward the end.

As was mentioned earlier, the depalletizer is of the high-level overhead variety. It discharges bottles onto a mass conveyor. Facing the depal discharge area and sitting on an overhead mezzanine layer installed by Conveyor & Automation are three machines from Pearson Packaging Systems. They erect and send paperboard six-pack carriers in corrugated RSCs in the opposite direction that the bottles are travelling. One Pearson unit pops up the paperboard carriers from flat blanks. Beside it is a case erector that erects and bottom glues corrugated cases. These machines advance carriers and cases forward to a third Pearson unit that stuffs the carriers into the cases. The cases then are conveyed down a decline conveyor that brings them to a robotic case packer. Troegner explains why Pearson equipment was picked for these tasks.

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