Even a world leader in packaging and PET plastics machinery cannot stop improving its products. Sipa knows that. Last year, it began to wonder if its fillers could fill a wider range of needs: "We decided to look at our existing range of fillers in a new light to see if we could achieve even higher standards of quality and efficiency while retaining the simplicity and sterilisability of the original designs," Federico Zannier, SIPA filling line sales manager, recalled.
"What we were aiming for was a new generation of fillers that would stand out with their versatility, high performance, ease of use and maintenance, in a complete system characterised by extreme cleanliness."
The result was a range called Flextronic. And it is this range that Sipa will be showing at interpack at Booth 73, Hall 13 this year
The Flextronic is able to fill multiple products on the same line – carbonated, still, hot fill up to 95ºC product temperature, cold fill, pulp or non pulp, water and/or juice.
The modularity of the Flextronic system makes it easy to adapt to specific applications. The 'C' version, for example, is a particularly versatile isobaric filler for carbonated and non-carbonated beverages that can also handle hot-fill products. Flextronic S gravity filler, with its extremely simple non-contact membrane valve, is ideal for water, milk, homogenized juices and clear products. The Flextronic SC, also a gravity filler, has a shuttered contact-type valve for hot and cold filling of smooth and pulpy beverages. A third gravity filler, Flextronic SE, with its non-contact shuttered valve, is designed for hot and cold filling of sensitive products such as premium juices with pulps. All four versions are on the SIPA stand.
Flextronic fillers are ideal for packaging companies with a broad mix of products that they may need to run for relatively short periods, on a limited number of lines, as well as operators moving into new and fast-developing areas, where it is unclear at the outset what the major product will ultimately be, and where equipment adaptability is a priority.
New filling valves on the Flextronic fillers have been designed with a clear separation between the pneumatic components and the parts in contact with the product in order to avoid contamination. They are made up of a series of elements that can be separated without disassembling the entire valve for ease of maintenance.
The range incorporates HotLight 28, a 28-mm short neck finish that is shorter than standard hot-fill neck finishes and considerably lighter at just 3.8 g, allows the production of hot fill and CSD containers on the same machine without any personalisation change.
It also interfaces with the SFR EVO3 rotary PET blow moulder range, that can produce bottles for a wide range of drinks. Without changing the mould shells, it can be quickly converted from producing bottles for water or carbonated soft drinks to bottles for hot-fill applications.
