The Customer
Refresco is an independent beverage manufacturer operating in 13 countries with 73 global facilities. Although they do not operate under their own label, the dedication to operate with 100% focus on the quality of the products they produce is paramount.
With a vision to “have drinks on every table”, the company needed to update their New South Wales factory, to improve the quality of their products for the Australian market.
The Application & Challenge
Making enhancements to their already state-of-the-art facility, Refresco were adding two new shrink sleeve lines. This addition would offer their customers greater flexibility on the branding and labelling choice for their marketing initiatives.
Shrink sleeve labels offer a full colour 360-degree printed area that is shrunk to match the contours of the bottle. Therefore, providing a not only a shelf appealing high-quality appearance but allows for much higher detail of information. This proves very beneficial for high quality beverages, especially within the dairy and energy drink market.
However, the challenge was that after filling, the bottles are cooled with water. Any remaining water on the bottle causes issues as the bottle then passes through the hot air shrinking tunnel. Labels can become misaligned and have a negative impact on the final appearance of the product, sleeving quality and overall line efficiency.
The second challenge the customer set Secomak was lead-time. From the initial enquiry to first production was less than four months. Which included time required to ship from the UK to Australia.
The Solution
The Secomak DryGuide was the perfect choice for complete bottle drying prior to the sleeve application. With capacity over to 40,000 bottles per hour, it not only met the immediate demands but provides plenty of capacity for future increases in production speed.
Refresco originally saw the DryGuide machine at Drinktec, the world’s leading exhibition for the beverage & liquid food industry. They were impressed with how the machine has been developed with the end user in mind and the demands on current production lines, with fewer operators and production lines running multi formats.
DryGuide technology has revolutionised the drying market. With the angle of the air flow fixed in the optimum position, it ensures that the bottles are dried each and every time. Requiring only minimal adjustments when changing between formats and achievable without the use of tools, markings and product stops ensure settings are repeatable. The Secomak DryGuide guarantees drying no matter the container.
The Benefits
As a global dryer manufacturer one of the key advantages of the DryGuide from a manufacturing perspective is its flexibility for applications. Secomak has designed the machine for use in food, beverage and pharmaceutical applications and dries a full range of bottles, cans & jars. This variation allows Secomak to standardise during the manufacturing process meaning we can react incredibly quickly, in this case, the two dryers were despatched in less than 7 weeks!
The flexibility has further helped the customer, post-shipping, with changes to their customer’s requirements, one of the dryers would now be drying cans. Not a problem for the Secomak DryGuide – requiring no modification or new parts.
They are so delighted with the performance of the first two machines, a further third machine has been ordered for another application.
Our technology uses the latest computational fluid dynamic simulations, high speed photography, wind tunnels & energy monitoring equipment we really have put science in drying. We have studied the impact of airflow with surfaces of containers and identified how best to dry containers. The DryGuide technology development uses all that data to develop a solution that not only achieves the optimum position for drying but fixing. Ensuring that the airflow is in the correct position not only guarantees the product will be dry but is done so with as little energy consumption as possible.
Why Refresco Chose Secomak
“We were introduced to Secomak at Drinktec in 2022 and immediately saw the benefits of their design. With a simple construction that allows easy retrofitting into an existing conveyor, and a “no guide rails” set up with integrated drying panels in place of conveyor rails there is nothing for the operators to adjust. The system allows ease of operation and well designed blowers.
On a short lead time project multiple dryers were delivered on time and allowed for a fast ramp up of our new 30,000bph production line. Secomak were easy to deal with and we have continued to purchase their equipment for subsequent projects.”
– David Pryor, Manufacturing Director, Refresco Australia PTY LTD
Technical Specification
