An efficient and adaptable bottle drying system for Heineken

The Problem

The Heineken plant in Valencia is one of the company’s four factories in Spain, where 30 different brands are canned, packaged and distributed. 4 million of these products are served every day in Spain.

The production lines had previously used a bottle drying system which needed to be boosted with compressed-air supply to achieve the desired drying effect. However, this configuration was both inefficient and did not meet the quality demands of the user.  In addition, the original systems were complicated and it took a long time to adjust them to the different products.

 Line Requirements:

Throughput Speeds: 33,000cph/44,000bph
Glass Bottle sizes: 33 cl, 25 cl and 28.5 cl
Can sizes: 25cl, 33cl, 37.5cl, 50cl, 56.8cl

The Solution

Supplied by ACI’s Spanish Distributor (PYGSA Sistemas y Aplicaciones) DRI-Line units were installed in two canning and one bottling line at the Heineken facility.  Can Drying Tunnels are configured for the can line, and ACI’s Jetplates are used to dry the bottle crown caps.  These bottle drying systems offer Heineken more efficient drying which guarantees a codification of the product without smudging, and specific labeling to prevent the bottles from slipping.

Both the bottle & can drying-lines use ACI’s “EL” blower, with a 15kW ACI EP10 unit.

Solutions For Packaging & Labelling

Our range of bottle and can drying systems helps to ensure that today’s ground breaking labelling and packaging technology is not compromised by any surface water used in the packaging process.

The Outcome

“In comparison with the old bottle drying system, the ACI systems are a great improvement. With the new systems, their operation, cleaning and the change from one product format to another are very simple. The ACI machines have not required any maintenance work since we installed them.” Juan Manuel García Romero, Packaging Supervisor, Heineken (Valencia facility).

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