drinktec Press Release
KHS motto for drinktec: Competence in Solutions
Quality right down the line with KHS. "Competence in Solutions" is the motto KHS has chosen for its presentation at drinktec 2009. This means that KHS attaches great importance to finding an all-round solution that focuses on turnkey plant and systems competence that is beyond compare. Life Cycle Solutions is a subject area that once again underlines the Competence in Solutions motto KHS has selected for drinktec. KHS Life Cycle Solutions advises and supports the beverage, food, and nonfood industries throughout the entire service life of KHS machinery. Life Cycle Solutions fully corresponds to the life cycle of a filling and packaging line and is divided into four areas: idea finding, investment, operation phase, and deinvestment. The clear objective of Life Cycle Solutions is to achieve ceaselessly efficient and economic operation of plant equipment throughout its entire life cycle. Regarding systems for plastic bottles, KHS Corpoplast, KHS Plasmax, and also KHS Asbofill, recently integrated into KHS AG, demonstrate that here, too, KHS is providing holistic solutions with the help of the newly affiliated companies. The focus is of course on KHS Life Cycle Solutions also in this area of business. And as is par for the course, here Life Cycle Solutions starts with line design. This is complemented by help with the design of suitable PET packaging systems using the Bottles & Shapes™ program. KHS' leading stretch blow moldtechnology is underlined by a high-performance Blomax machine with a
capacity of more than 60,000 bottles per hour. To this add successful, crystal-clear Plasmax barrier coating and you have everything available from a one-stop shop, complemented by the KHS range of filling, labeling, and packaging services. Once the planning of the PET systems and intralogistics is complete, the KHS Life Cycle Solutions program then assists customers in the installation and commissioning of the lines. Life Cycle Solutions provides service, support, operational optimization and conversions throughout the entire life cycle of the lines. The deinvestment phase deals with the dismantling, possible relocation, and repurchase of machines and equipment. Before a customer invests in PET plant engineering, KHS also offers advice on, among others, the subject of separate stretch blow molders, air conveyors and separate filler/capper systems or monoblocked stretch blow molder/filler/capper systems. The new InnoPET BloFill monoblock provides clients with yet another alternative. The advantage of the monoblocked system lies in the fact that the costs for investment and production are lower than those for traditional PET bottle manufacturing and filling equipment. There are also the added benefits of increased line efficiency, minimized space requirements, and lower operator involvement, all of which help to optimize costs. The InnoPET BloFill system also enables the stretch blow molder to be half loaded within the monoblock concept. With this option, the monoblocked stretch blow molder/filler/capper InnoPET BloFill system has a unique position on the market. KHS is also proving to be something of a pioneer with its HotFill+ System. What's new here is that the HotFill+ process can now cope with filling capacities of 43,000 PET bottles per hour. In PET hot filling, the days of heavy bottles with their typical vacuum compensation panels are gone! The KHS HotFill+ System compensates for the shrinkage of PET bottles after hot filling by adding a certain amount of nitrogen to the headspace of the bottle immediately before capping. At the end of the day, KHS' HotFill+ System further reduces production costs per bottle by enabling manufacturers to reduce bottle weights, among other things, thus also optimizing the total operating costs. KHS competence in plant engineering is again accentuated by the presentation of another KHS highlight at drinktec: 3D line design. 3D line design enables customers worldwide to see 'their' KHS line in 3D before they order. Using this technology allows any required changes to be made immediately. The system accesses a database that can retrieve any model in the KHS product portfolio as requested. The desired new situation at the customer's plant can be viewed immediately. The decisive advantage here is that companies in the beverage, food, and nonfood sectors have an exact impression of what their commissioned machinery will look like and how it can be included in the general operation of the plant before they actually place their order. Whichever way you look at it, KHS provides quality right down the line. In order to fully maintain this standard of quality, constant analysis forms the basis of all new and further technical developments. One of these new developments that shall be introduced at drinktec is the Innopack WSP wrap-around shrink packer. Like the shrink packer, tray shrink packer, and pad shrink packer before it, the Innopack WSP is part of the new Advanced series. One definite plus of this particular series is its extreme flexibility, provided by the exchangeable functional modules. Here, innovative KHS packaging technology is driven by servo motors that are identical for all functional modules. In the new series, the machine body is cubic in design. Together with the new protective hood concept, this offers the operating crew the advantage of an even better view into the inner workings of the machine. Taking into account the aspect of sustainability, the Innopack WSP on display at drinktec will feature a downstream eco shrink tunnel. The special feature here is that the eco shrink tunnel operates with a gas heater instead of the electric heater ordinarily used in the past. What's more, using a gas heater as the heart of the shrink tunnel can cut energy costs by up to 50 percent compared with the conventional electric heater. Sustainability is an aspect that is just as important in the new generation of roll-fed labelers, the Innoket 360. The focus of this development has been placed on energy efficiency, process quality, reliability, and ease of operation. Novel features of the Innoket 360 include new cutting technology with a self-sharpening cutter, a segmented vacuum drum, and an induction-based gluing temperature control system. All in all, at drinktec KHS will be demonstrating just what the beverage, food and non-food industries can expect from KHS in the future. And that is – literally – quality right down the line.
