Sidel’s new technology is an intelligent solution for blow moulders

Provider of PET solutions for liquid packaging, Sidel, has recently developed new quality control and analysis technology that it says is a “significant innovation” in bringing control and self-regulation to the blow moulding process. 

The ‘Intelliblower’ is a patented technology that Sidel says ensures greater accuracy in distribution of material during the production of individual bottles, with the elimination of inconsistencies resulting in improved quality, regardless of bottle weight.

Prior to the Intelliblower, quality control for PET bottle blowing involved frequent sampling and laboratory testing of bottles. This was then followed by lengthy manual adjustments to the process and lines becoming inefficient. By controlling parameters of the pre-blow phase that strongly impact final material distribution instead of simply focusing on regulation of heating, Sidel says Intelliblower uses PET material optimally and cost efficiently. It is therefore able to have a higher impact on production uniformity and packaging quality, irrespective of the weight of the bottle being produced.

Self-regulating, the Intelliblower system automatically detects and corrects process deviations on the shape of each bottle being blown, adapting to maintain an even material distribution with only the most minor variations. 

This ensures that every milligram of PET is correctly allocated. Sidel says this control, combined with the process capability of the Intelliblower, results in reduced waste and excellent PET lightweighting potential, even with recycled material.

Sidel Intelliblower is designed to be user-friendly. Through the Human Machine Interface (HMI) of Sidel’s Matrix blow moulding machines, process values of individual blowing stations are recorded, along with dedicated graphs. This gives operators a comprehensive overall picture of the process performance.  It also alerts them to any potential inconsistencies, indicating those stations where any bottles are being blown outside accepted tolerances. 

Sidel says that with the Intelliblower, beverage producers are able to enjoy improved bottle quality due to higher blow moulding performance along with an increased insight into the operation of their production equipment.  This, it says, will allow them to benefit from both greater package consistency and subsequently, better brand value.