Sipa

Edelweiss, part of the IDS holding, is one of the leading Russian companies in the mineral water market. Its numerous brands of still and sparkling water are bottled at its factory in Lipezk. Due to the need to improve both its containers and the productivity of the plant, Edelweiss contacted SIPA to take advantage of the company's 20 years' experience in the development of wide ranging packaging systems: from the design of containers to the supply of moulds and bottling lines. The Italian company was firstly appointed to develop a project for reducing weights and for prototyping activities. SIPA prepared a design for a 1.5 litre bottle of still water which reduced the weight from 40 grams to 36 grams, with a consequent saving of 4 grams for every single bottle. The design was developed without modifying the neck already used. SIPA reduced the weight of the body and kept the thread unchanged, thereby avoiding modifications to the bottle top fitting machine already installed on the blowing line. In order to develop this project, SIPA designed an ad hoc preform, with an improved shape so as to optimize the blowing process and the technical performance, especially in terms of bottling and palletising resistance. In order to guarantee the excellent rigidity of the bottle, SIPA also recommended that Edelweiss adopt the sterile air injection system. In this way, it was possible to achieve a significant reduction of the costs with respect to the commonly used nitrogen drip system. With a view to modernising the plant and improving productivity, SIPA was subsequently appointed to design and supply a new blowing and filling line. The Italian project increased the output from 6,000 to 20,000 bottles/hour, thereby increasing the productivity by more than threefold within the same production area. These results were made possible by use of a SFR12 and Synchro technology which integrates the blowing, the filling and capping processes, with a consequent optimisation of the production areas. SFR12, just like the entire range of SIPA rotary blowers, is characterised by a high production capacity, small size, simplified mechanics and very low energy consumption. These characteristics are optimised by the Synchro system which enables high production rates to be achieved in small areas.