drinktec 2017: World premieres and digitalization solutions
By Canadian Packaging staff
Automation Bottling drinktec 2017 Krones AGKrones impresses the beverage and liquid-food industries.
Krones AG of Neutraubling, Germany, had a highly-successful drinktec 2017, the world’s biggest and most important trade fair for the beverage and liquid-food industries, held in Munich every four years.
This year’s drinktec saw over 76,000 visitors from more than 170 different countries, achieving the best result ever in the 66 years of its existence.
Around 90 per cent of the visitors came to Krones AG’s stand, keen to learn more about the innovations on show from this globally operating company in the beverage filling and packaging sector.
Krones spotlighted for the trade visitors not only interesting design enhancements, but also path-breaking new products.
The major focus was on innovations that on a smaller footprint enable the same output (OEE = overall equipment efficiency) to be achieved, provide ever higher levels of individualization and flexibility, and impart additional sustainability to the production operation – with digitalization playing a key role.
Beer filling in just 0.5 seconds
When beverages and liquid foods are being filled, the speed of the filling process plays a vital role. This is why at drinktec 2017 Krones exhibited a beer filler able to fill a bottle within just 0.5 seconds, making it the world’s fastest beer filler.
The design also features an integrated bottle crowner, something that’s normally installed as a separate machine downstream of the filler itself.
The filling and crowning operations together take a mere five seconds, which means this new machine halves the time hitherto required to fill and crown a bottle and reduces the beer’s oxygen pick-up, with concomitant gains in terms of beer quality.
The production line of the future
With the consumer always looking for individualization, Krones believes it has come up with the perfect solution.
As exemplified by something called the “Bottling on Demand” concept study comprising a combination of filler, direct-printing machine and intelligent conveyors, Krones realizes that even small batch sizes are a viable option, while nonetheless offering maximized flexibility.
Bottling on Demand is an ultra-flexible ‘production line of the future’—a project that already symbolizes Industry 4.0.
This concept study for the first time presented a filling option for a batch size of one, whose end-product, beginning with the bottle shape, the contents, the closure and the dress, and even the RFID (radio-frequency identification) code, can be specified individually in its entirety—all via an app.
Added value thanks to digitalization solutions from Krones
The combination of machines and lines, clouds and data, played a paramount role in Krones’ presence at the drinktec 2017 trade show.
The firm’s digitalization solutions were enthusiastically received by the visitors.
With cloud computing, big data, smart data, the internet of things and much, much more, the digitalization solutions from Krones provide data, know-how and fast communication, designed to upgrade still further the efficiency of the lines concerned and to make comprehensive use of all potentials along the entire value creation chain, thus enabling genuine added value to be generated in the filling plants of the beverage and food industries.
The trade show visitors, representing small, mid-tier, and also large internationally well-known beverage corporations, were impressed by Krones’ new products.
Some of them, in contrast to previous fairs, stayed for three to five days, in order to familiarize themselves with the new technologies in numerous highly intensive conversations.
Krones AG executive board chairman Christoph Klenk was very succinct in describing his firm’s successful drinktec 2017: “We’re very satisfied.”
Company information available at: www.krones.com/en/index.php
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