Technological advances mean market advantages
Once again, the Silver Springs Bottled Water Company is targeting a leading market position worldwide with the InnoPET BloFill monoblock concept
Georg Zuzok* Mike Brancato** Silver Springs – a source which not only guarantees quality, but at the same time has quite a history behind it. Indians in the 16th century held the superb water quality at Silver Springs, located in what is today the region of Ocala, Florida, in high esteem. When Hullam Jones developed the world's first glass-bottomed boat in the 19th century and used it at Silver Springs to observe fish, turtles and century-old fossils, the source became more and more popular with the people of Florida. Today Silver Springs is known across the world. This is due not just to people visiting the attraction, but also because the breath-taking scenery provided by Silver Springs is used as a location in numerous films. For example, six of the original Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmüller, and more than one hundred episodes of "Sea Hunt" in addition to many other films featuring famous Hollywood stars were filmed there. This popularity is most useful to the Silver Springs Bottled Water Company, founded there in 1985. Kane Richmond, President & CEO of the Silver Springs Bottled Water Company, says: "Silver Springs as a tourist attraction conveys an image of the high quality which we provide with our bottled Silver Springs water. In addition to the high quality of Silver Springs water, we set positive signals with our price, service and wide variety of packaging variants, thus providing our customers with substantial added value and acting as a customer-orientated company in every way". This is truly a customer-orientated company in every way, which amongst other things also continues to keep a high market profile through the use of innovative KHS technology. For example, Silver Springs was the first beverage company worldwide to use a monoblocked KHS stretch blow molder/filler system when it acquired the newly developed InnoPET BloFill monoblock in 2008, and the company were well able to use the related advance in technology to their own ends. Richmond: "The positive experience gained in this pilot project, thanks amongst other things to repeated energy-savings in Production and* Head of Market Zone Americas, KHS GmbH, Bad Kreuznach, Phone: +49 6 71-8 52-22 02 ** Vice President of Sales & Marketing, KHS USA, Inc., Phone: +1-2 62 - 7 87-16 76 even more "lightweighting" as regards our PET bottles, caused us to maintain our pioneering position in the latest KHS pilot project, too. For this reason, we consciously ordered the KHS InnoPET BloFill monoblock with the new-generation stretch blow molder InnoPET Blomax Series IV; the first ever to be used worldwide – in a high-performance version with an output of up to 72,000 0.5-l PET bph. In retrospect, this was precisely the right decision". Many correct decisions contribute towards one success story If one considers the history of the Silver Springs Bottled Water Company, a large number of correct decisions can be determined, each of which have contributed to the company's current success. This is a success which basically only really got going when Karl and Margaret Richmond bought the company in 1991. At that time, business with bottled water wasn't strong in the USA. However, this didn't prevent the Richmonds from recognizing its enormous future potential. And they were right. At the start, a team of only 6 people were engaged to fill Silver Springs water into 5 liter gallons (an American gallon is the equivalent of 3.785 liters); yet the company now employs 150 workers and fills, in addition to large containers, numerous PET bottle variants, from 0.24-l PET bottles (8 ounce PET bottles) right up to 1.5-l PET bottles. As Richmond says: "We orientate ourselves entirely towards our customers’ requirements. Should an increased range of PET bottle sizes prove necessary in future, we will act immediately and according to our motto "The customer is King". Seeing the customer as "King" targets sustainability This is a "King" who recently is increasingly demanding sustainability and for whom environmentally-friendly packaging represents an important part of this sustainability. The customer requests, and Silver Springs Bottled Water Company realizes those requests – and this procedure is also followed through permanent PET bottle optimization, which is consistently based on the latest developments. Richmond: "Here the KHS Bottles & Shapes range has played and is playing a major role. For example, we have been able to achieve a weight reduction from 13.2 grams to 9.1 grams with our 0.5-l PET bottle, with which we currently make 70 percent of our PET bottle sales, in a two-step process since 2008. We are working on further reductions in weight. Our next targeted objective has been defined as a bottle weight of below 9 grams, with our eyes fixed on the 8 gram mark. We are also currently cooperating with KHS to check through our entire PET bottle series". Bottles & Shapes – the solution for optimum quality, minimal costs and sustainability in PET bottle design. Bottles & Shapes is the worldwide unique KHS Corpoplast Service and Consulting offer for the design and development of plastic bottles. Within the scope of the Bottles & Shapes program, KHS Corpoplast supports partners in the beverage industry throughout the entire time period and development process for a plastic container – from the initial idea to its industrial manufacture. Here, to put it simply, the aim is to find a solution which stands for optimum quality and minimum costs and which guarantees sustainability across the entire production process. In the initial step for Bottles & Shapes, the clarification of the following questions - as put into practice during the development of the lightweight 0.5-l PET bottle for Silver Springs - always remains the focus of our activities: Which products are to be filled into the PET bottles to be produced; which filling technologies are used, which stresses are placed on the PET bottle during conveying along the line right up to the palletization process as well as during trade transport and at point of sale. Based on this analysis, KHS Corpoplast – as for Silver Springs – makes design suggestions for the required PET bottles. Generally, the development of the bottle shapes takes place at KHS Corpoplast using computer simulations. Using the finite element analysis, all known influences are simulated and applied to the virtual packaging. The development of prototypes is followed by the production of the newly-developed PET bottles on a laboratory machine. They are explicitly tested as to whether all the stipulated specifications have been maintained. An initial practice run on the PET packaging takes place - as with Silver Springs - using the sample containers provided by KHS Corpoplast. The InnoPET Blomax Series IV permits even more savings to be made on material Silver Springs is hoping to reduce the weight of its 0.5-l PET bottles again, mainly due to the use of the new InnoPET BloFill monoblock, on which the stretch blow molder generation, InnoPET Blomax 36 Series IV (36 cavities) is coupled with the filling system Innofill NV 100 (100 filling stations). This monoblock concept at Silver Springs is not only special because it is a global pilot project, but also because it emerges as a high-performance system able to process up to 72,000 0.5-l PET bph. Richmond explains: "Just as with our first InnoPET Blofill monoblock, we were quickly able to achieve full performance". One aspect which always speaks for savings in material in monoblock concepts as regards the production of plastic bottles is that more lightweight PET bottles can be used in the extremely gentle transfer of freshly-produced PET bottles than if they are shifted via air conveyors. On the new InnoPET BloFill monoblock, this advantage is supplemented by the simplified blocking of filler and blow molders in comparison to previous models. Here the functions for removing bottles from the blow station and adjusting the distance of finished PET bottles to one another according to the configuration of the filling system is now handled by just one modular transfer wheel. If - as with the Silver Springs Bottled Water Company, which currently only fills still water - only non-carbonated beverages are to be bottled, the PET bottles are sent straight to the infeed star of the filling system after passing through the airlock. The servo motor-controlled stretching process on the new stretch blow molder generation InnoPET Blomax Series IV also represents an opportunity for additional savings on material. It allows the use of preforms which have been optimized to the last tenth of a gram in PET material. Formerly, this simply wasn't possible, as speed reductions in the filler area also automatically caused an undesirable reduction in stretch speed on blow molders with a cam-controlled stretching process. Thanks to the servo-controlled stretching process on the InnoPET Blomax Series IV, when monoblocked with a filling machine the stretching movement can now always be carried out at the optimum speed – irrespective of filler speed –, allowing reductions in material. Energy reductions of 30 percent in comparison to previous models Richmond expressed his enthusiasm not only for the possibilities provided by the InnoPET Blomax Series IV with reference to new weight reductions on PET bottles, but also for other features inherent in the new generation of stretch blow molders. Richmond: "For, example, the energy savings announced by KHS which could be achieved through the InnoPET Blomax Series IV have been confirmed in every aspect during application at our company. We now verifiably require 30 percent less energy than with our monoblocked InnoPET Blomax Series III“. It is worth mentioning that the monoblock version put into operation in 2008 has a comparatively lower capacity of 43,200 0.5-l PET bph in order to make clear how impressive the performance actually is, which can in particular be attributed to the integration of a new heater module in the InnoPET Blomax Series IV, which approximately halves the heating time for the preforms in comparison to the InnoPET Blomax Series III. The preforms are heated using short-wave infrared radiation "Near Infra Red". With NIR, the penetration of the preform wall is extremely intense – a feature further increased by feeding the preform through a closed heating chamber with all-round reflection. Equally important is that the very tightly spaced mandrels make total heat penetration of all preforms in the oven extremely efficient. A further advantage of the innovative preform heating process is that the start-up time for the new InnoPET BIomax Series IV is extremely short thanks to the energy density, the small pitch (tightly spaced mandrels) and the associated quick preform heating process, which lasts only approx. 15 seconds. Richmond: "The advantages of the InnoPET BIomax Series IV already stated are supplemented by substantial savings on compressed air. You can't get more customer-orientated than that. We are extremely satisfied with this new technology. In addition, KHS acts entirely in accordance with our strategy of maximum customer orientation through the optimum consultancy and perfect service provided by the KHS branch in the USA. This clearly shows that we are cooperating with the right partner. I would also maintain that KHS technology has established a clear lead in the fields of energy reduction, availability and total cost of ownership in comparison to rival products“ The filling system Innofill NV also manages the filling of non-carbonated water without conductivity The Silver Springs company's wishes have also been fulfilled with the stretch blow molder InnoPET Blomax Series IV monoblocked filling system. Here the decision was made in favor of the same filler type as 2008. This is the electronically-controlled normal pressure filling system Innofill NV, on which the non-contact filling via a free-flow filling valve ensures microbiological and hygienic safety. The Innofill NV practices the principle of volumetric filling. A major advantage of volumetric filling is the targeted product savings. While slight overfilling is necessary for the classic filling level method in order to ensure a certain minimum filling level, this is not required for volumetric filling. Silver Spring's need, amongst other things, to fill non-carbonated water with low or without any electrical conductivity easily has been perfectly fulfilled in this application. On the Innofill NV, impeller measurement is used instead of magnetically inductive flowmetering. This measurement is based on the volumes of liquid transported in the impeller areas in conjunction with the speed of rotation of the impeller. Signals are transmitted without contact to a sensor that derives the fluid flow rate from the measurement signals. The prime benefit of this measuring method is that Silver Springs can simply bottle even demineralized water having no conductivity which can be processed. Richmond: "Using this filling system, we are optimally equipped for all aspects of consumer requirements in terms of non-carbonated water. In addition, the filling system allows us to process other non-carbonated beverages such as for example fruit juice beverages, flavored water etc, etc, etc...“. KHS turnkey solutions offer a veritable package of advantages According to Richmond, the new InnoPET BloFill monoblock, which has been designed for all aspects of the production and filling of PET bottle sizes of up to 2 liters, will continue to process primarily the 0.5-l PET bottle packaging preferred by the consumer- just as in the KHS monoblock supplied in 2008, which is integrated into a KHS turnkey line, in which amongst other things an Innopack Kisters TSP 080 tray shrink packer is still doing the company proud. As Richmond confirms: "We are more than delighted with the Innopack Kisters packaging technology. Here we see optimum packaging results - rewarded by the purchaser at the point of sale. In particular because we did not decide in favor of KHS turnkey performance for our latest line, we know - and this is another major factor for us - how much we should value the KHS turnkey project from 2008. In future we will of course be putting the principle of the "one-stop shop" at the forefront of our considerations". The Silver Springs/KHS success story continues… This statement has been strongly underlined through Richmond's order for two further KHS turnkey lines. These KHS turnkey lines, of which one high-performance line is to manage the filling and packaging of up to 72,000 0.5-l PET bottles, and another system with a capacity for up to 35,200 PET bottles, conceived as a multi-functional line for a wide range of PET bottle variants, are to be integrated into a new Silver Springs subsidiary in Pennsylvania. As background information: until now, the main distribution area of Silver Springs lay in the south-east of the USA and therefore runs from Florida to Pennsylvania. Deliveries are carried out through all distribution channels. This means that in addition to retail trade, products are supplied to the catering trade and even delivery to companies and households is possible. In future, the intention is to expand distribution right up to the Canadian border. If one considers the company history, which features numerous good decisions made at the appropriate times since 1991, the expansion of the distribution area represents a further step in the right direction. This is particularly the case because average annual increases in sales of 20 percent were recorded at Silver Springs over the past ten years. …and the focus is always on the customer, the customer and the customer again According to Richmond, this is a major reason for such a positive development. Silver Springs is a purely family-run company, in the meantime with three generations at its helm. The father, who Richmond describes as the "What is next Guy“; Richmond himself, the "Here we are today Guy", and the son, who is working part-time in the company after school and, according to Richmond, "has already learned a lot from the KHS engineers at the machines". In summary: the future can come - Silver Springs, as one of the most important US family-run companies in the water business, is well-equipped for it. With maximum customer orientation, innovative KHS technology and KHS Service which fully measures up to the Silver Springs philosophy "The focus is always on the customer, the customer and the customer again" in every respect.
