Empty can transport and inspection: a complex task cleverly solved
The Polish Kompania Piwowarska has decided in favour of HEUFT transport and inspection systems so that everything runs smoothly during the filling of beverage cans at the Princely Brewery Tychy and has thus significantly increased the output of its canning line.
Full speed ahead when filling beverage cans! This was one of the most important reasons why Kompania Piwowarska, which dominates the Polish beer sector with a market share of almost 50 percent, invested in HEUFT equipment for a trouble-free, efficient transport and a precise quality inspection of the empty cans at its Tychy location.
Because far too often they got stuck in the can twister at higher transport speeds, so that on the one hand there were always jams and blockages. And on the other hand to indentations and other defects at the crimping edge of the can mouth which in turn led to errors during closing and a resulting loss of the overall line performance.
Innovative HEUFT concept for more safety and efficiency in the canning line
In order to reliably find such faults and to replace the can twister which caused them with a gentler alternative for a safer and more efficient empty can transport the Princely Brewery Tychy had innovative HEUFT equipment integrated into its TL 6 line. An additional aim was to apply and check the best-before date (BBD) before filling so that incorrectly marked cans are rejected before the valuable Tyskie beer can enter.
A complex task that seemed unsolvable at first glance. However, in close cooperation with those responsible for the technical side in Tychy HEUFT developed a novel, viable concept which had never before been implemented at a canned beer producer: replace the existing empty can inspection with two modern HEUFT canLine II systems, replace the previous container conveyor with a special vacuum conveyor and replace the can turner with a vacuum bridge.
Wobble-free empty can transport, high-precision empty can inspection
With success: the two new-generation empty can inspectors thoroughly examine the base, the inner walls and the crimping edge of 50,000 beer cans per hour, each conveyed on two parallel lanes, and find foreign objects in the can as well as dents, indentations and defects on the can. Damaged can rims are reliably identified and the packaging material affected is rejected by the HEUFT pusher in time that it no longer impairs the closer’s performance and the full line speed is finally achieved.
The innovative HEUFT vacuum conveyor sucks the beverage cans downwards for this purpose so that they can be inspected from above without wobbling. And on their way over the vacuum bridge they are then pulled upwards in reverse so that the best-before date on the outer can base can be easily coded and reliably checked by our smart sensor camera while the still unfilled metal packages hover over them.
Full product safety, full productivity
Everything now runs smoothly when transporting, inspecting, filling and seaming the beer cans after the successful installation of the modern equipment. The efficiency of the plant has increased significantly after the successful installation: The full output of up to 100,000 units per hour is now actually achieved.
And should the line efficiency drop it does not go unnoticed: the HEUFT PROFILER for production data acquisition and line analysis reports it in good time. Faultless filling of beverage cans at full productivity is now guaranteed in line TL 6 of Kompania Piwowarska’s Tychy brewery!
The following video shows how well not only the Piwowarska canning line runs with empty and full container inspectors and fill management systems from HEUFT:
