New packaging lines with high productivity.

Yokoi, T., Sasaki, T. and Kurahashi, M.

Abstract
The high performance automatic bottling and canning lines installed by Suntory in their Tonegawa Brewery in 1989 are described. Because of a shortage of skilled filling line operators, the facilities had to be designed so as to increase productivity without increasing the work load on the operators. Several devices were installed for the automation of tasks previously performed manually (such as the identification and removal of foreign and damaged bottles, can date code legibility inspection, cutting the securing bands on pallet loads of unfilled cans, etc.). A survey of malfunctions on the older packaging lines was used to identify weak spots and develop measures to reduce or eliminate some of the major sources of trouble (e.g. by redesigning the can packer to cope with variations in cardboard quality). Control and monitoring systems were redesigned for greater ease of operation, and training schemes were set up so that personnel would already be familiar with the equipment when it came into use (particularly important as each operator is responsible for several machines).
Keywords : automatic bottling line canning line design equipment performance