Reducing the expenses associated with producing PET preforms while ensuring the quality remains unchanged.

Reducing the expenses associated with producing PET preforms while ensuring the quality remains unchanged

Minimizing production expenses while maintaining a high level of quality is the most effective strategy for boosting a company's profits. This principle holds true in the beverage industry, especially for manufacturers of PET preforms who convert them into bottles for soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, and other liquid food products.
Additionally, it's crucial to consider changes in consumer preferences and market trends, such as seasonal variations, which can impact sales. To remain competitive, a business must evaluate emerging trends and refine its operations. Let's explore how this can be achieved.

Aiming at mould quality

Choosing a partner who specializes in designing and manufacturing tailored, high-quality injection and blow moulds is crucial for ensuring efficient and trouble-free production over the long term, thereby minimizing maintenance costs and the need for spare parts.
The foundation of this process lies in the selection of materials. The steel and aluminum utilized in crafting the moulds must possess outstanding properties that guarantee durability, as these tools will undergo millions of cycles.
A mould that remains operational without issues for an extended period will generate consistent profits, quickly recouping the initial investment and providing ongoing financial benefits to the business.
Additionally, advanced design and planning of cooling channels play a significant role in influencing the speed of preform production and optimizing water usage.

PET design and lightweighting

A key element in lowering costs is the lightweight design of PET preforms. However, this approach must ensure that the resulting bottles and containers possess the appropriate features for palletization, transportation, and importantly, meet the requirements of the consumers who will use them.
Achieving lighter PET preforms and bottles necessitates a thorough design process.

This phase should be conducted by industry experts who can evaluate the necessary properties of the containers to be produced while minimizing material usage.

Only after completing this preliminary research and prototyping stage can molds be developed that perfectly align with a company's specific production demands.

Injection moulds designed for flexible production

By utilizing an intelligently designed preform, it becomes feasible to develop injection molds that can be adjusted to meet various production requirements.
When there's a need to modify the weight of the preform—either to reduce or increase it—it's crucial that this adjustment can be made simply by swapping out the core, rather than having to redesign the entire mold.

This approach clearly leads to significant time and cost savings.

While this flexibility in PET preform manufacturing is a key advantage, it's also essential to account for spikes in demand, especially among bottlers during the summer months.

To prevent downtime, those who do not maintain large inventories of preforms throughout the year must invest in molds that are appropriately sized, or even slightly larger, in relation to their blow molding machines.

Lower environmental impact: saving in harmful emissions and money

The packaging industry is progressively shifting towards options that are more environmentally friendly, benefiting both the planet and reducing costs.
Utilizing machinery that consumes less energy and molds that require less water leads to significant savings in CO2 emissions, conservation of natural resources, and lower production expenses.

Another emerging trend is the adoption of recycled PET (R-PET), which offers both ecological and financial advantages. For instance, during the Packaging & Recycling Forum 2019, Ferrarelle reported notable benefits from implementing R-PET at its facility in Presenzano (CE):

“Our production capacity has reached up to 23 kt/year of R-PET, resulting in a market return of 15Kt/year in new bottles. The introduction of new technologies has led to energy savings, reduced polymer stress, enhanced decontamination, and improved economic competitiveness.”

The sustainability of industrial processes related to PET container production is already a reality in this industry and will remain a key focus for future technological advancements.