Coca-Cola bottler reduces blowing pressure by over 50%

The Midwest Coca-Cola Bottling Company is located in Eagan, Minnesota. The company manufactures bottles and distributes Coca-Cola products throughout much of the Midwestern area of the United States. The company wanted to maximise its profitability by increasing its production efficiency and minimising its operational costs. Yet, at the same time, the company was also looking to reduce the environmental impact of its processes and that of its resource use.

Midwest called in Sidel, a provider of PET solutions for liquid packaging, in the hope of achieving tangible cost and energy savings through a detailed overview of existing line conditions during full production.

Sidel’s ECO Booster service analyses a line to identify potential opportunities for savings using production technologies. Efficiency measurement tools can be installed that automatically record the consumption of all utilities (air, water, electricity and carbon dioxide) by individual machines, lines, production zones or an entire plant. As well as measuring consumption and calculating energy costs per bottle produced, the service and tools provide the ability to facilitate correlation between consumption levels and different production procedures (start-up, shutdown, changeover and cleaning). This information can then be used by beverage producers to effectively support initiatives for reducing waste.

For Midwest Coca-Cola, the next step was a mechanical testing of the blow moulders’ subassemblies. Because when it comes to the use of energy within busy production lines, the blow moulder is usually the main cause, often accounting for as much as 70% of overall energy consumption. Furthermore, a sizable portion of that consumption can be attributed to the provision of compressed air during the blowing process.

By implementing its ECO Booster service on four of Midwest Coca-Cola’s SBO14/14 blow-moulding machines, encompassing various bottle formats, Sidel has helped the bottler to make significant reductions in both the blowing pressure and the blowing ovens’ use of electricity. Across 10 different bottle formats, the average reduction in blowing pressure was 45.9% (the lowest being 19.4% and the highest 50.7%). The average reduction in the ovens’ energy consumption was 22.3% (with the lowest saving being 15.7% and the highest being 38.1%).

Jim Tierney, maintenance manager of the Midwest Coca-Cola Bottling Company, explains: “Reduced resource use means reduced costs, which is a sustainability win-win for us. For this reason we are always looking to speak with our partners about new innovations that can help us achieve this goal. The Sidel ECO Booster is a great example of this, resulting in a significant reduction of our blowing air pressure and oven electricity use across four of our lines.”