With a focus on maximising production uptime and efficiency for the packaging industry, Sidel has leveraged the latest in automation technology to develop Bottle Switch- an innovative changeover solution.

Bottle Switch solutions have been designed for the Sidel EvoBLOW range and can specifically be applied to gravimetric preform feeders, ovens, and blowing wheels to support a quick switch in preform neck finishes and bottle shapes. The innovative solution allows selecting and applying the right equipment process and configuration efficiently for every Stock Keeping Unit (SKU), with shortened changeover duration alongside high-precision and repeatable operations. Perfect bottle quality and high production performance can be achieved immediately after every changeover with up to 98% efficiency.

Easy, precise and repeatable changeovers

Bottle Switch has been designed to deliver optimised changeovers and maximise the potential of Sidel’s highly flexible blowing machines. Reliable and easy-to-use, Sidel blowers are proven to offer simplicity in operation without compromising accuracy. Dedicated motors support the automatic, mechanical element positioning for the gravimetric preform feeder’s infeed rails while also assisting the oven’s heating modules and cooling shields with horizontal adjustments.

These factors are combined with simplified manual operations requiring minimum human intervention. Digital clocks enable toolless manual positioning, instantly validating these new settings for the preform feeder roller adjustments as well as the oven’s heating modules and cooling shield’s vertical adjustments. Bottle Switch has been developed to provide a fully robotised mould replacement, carried out by a double mould holder robot. It stores each SKU specification in the process recipes, which are all accessible through Human Machine Interface (HMI). Therefore entire changeover programs can be saved and centralised to repeat at any time.

Significant time saving

The overall changeover time delivered by Bottle Switch, compared to a standard manual changeover, can be reduced by 75 percent, and it has the potential to produce up to 13.2 million bottles per year (based on SBO 24 blower¹). When applied on preform feeder and oven, Bottle Switch enables changeovers to be completed in just 17 minutes (versus 1 hour 5 minutes manually). This automated and simplified system also reduces the changeover time per mould by four times, with just 30 seconds (versus 2 minutes for standard manual moulds changeovers). The service delivered through Bottle Switch, therefore, not only reduces the risk of an accident but also offers effective and optimised use of manual operators’ resources.

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Find out more about Bottle Switch and how you can access this kind of support for your business on the Sidel website.