ACMI has installed an innovative bottling line at Ferrarelle Group, one of the most important Italian brands of mineral water. The line is capable of handling both round and square PET bottles and has a nominal filling speed of 40,000 bottles per hour.

This was an "ACMI Complete Line" - a project that starts from studying the best lay-out and continues through to the final commissioning of the installation passing the various phases of customer interface, coordination, construction of machines, installation and acceptance test. It is commonly identified as a "turnkey project" and this is exactly what ACMI carried out at the Ferrarelle installation.

The "compact line" concept

An important aspect which characterises the Ferrarelle line is the "compact line" concept. It is a philosophy which regards the projection of the line completely eliminating the accumulation tables except the one at the out feed of the blowing-filling block.

The "compact line" is a new way of perceiving the bottling line which is considered as being one single system that runs in a synchronous manner adjusting instant by instant the production speed of the single elements in order to generate a continuous and homogeneous flow from the filler to the stretch wrapper. This is only possible if you have machines which are highly efficient and reliable and the machines in the ACMI product range are exactly that.

Automatic change over

An indispensable characteristic for the successful outcome of a "compact line" project is the automatic feeding of the consumable materials. The machines must be capable of autonomously providing the provisions of the materials necessary for the packaging of the product; film, handles, pallets, interlayers and stretch film.

Fenix shrinkwrapper

The first important machine after the filling block is the Fenix shrink wrapper. This machine is equipped with an automatic film changeover device which does not require any operator intervention apart from substituting the terminated spool reel once the machine has carried out the film changeover. The intervention does not interfere with the functioning of the machine as it is already working with the new spool reel.

The Viper handle applicator

On the Ferrarelle line a new innovative mechanic handle applicator was supplied which does not require any spacing screws. The heart of the system is entirely electronic. It is the software that regulates the speed on the infeed belt creating the correct distance between the packs. The model installed is a double infeed machine that can handle packs with either round or square bottles and can reach a maximum speed of 100 packs per minute for each lane.

Palletiser

Faster and Twisterbox represent the best combination of obtaining a palletising system with high outputs. When the Twisterbox layer formation system is associated with the Faster, this becomes a system capable of catering for any type of container or high level of production. The precision of movements, the ease of change over format and reduced maintenance required make the Twisterbox a unique machine in the field of palletising.

Rocket rotating table pallet stretch wrapper

Another interesting machine is the Rocket stretch wrapper with rotating table and spool height of 1000mm. The structure of the stretch wrapper is constructed with a vertical column that occupies a very contained amount of space. Apart from the anti-dust system, the so called "top cover", the machine may also be equipped with a waterproof wrapping system. The most important aspect of this stretch wrapper is, without doubt, the electronic pre-stretching group: thanks to this element, the stretch wrapper can pre-stretch the film up to a value of 400% (or more if the film allows it).

Furthermore, the electronic command of all the parameters allows the realisation of personalised wrapping programs. This means that there is the possibility of establishing the pre-stretching value of the film during each working phase, optimising both the consumption of the film, pressure on the product and quality of the wrapping.