More thermoforming capabilities using Agami technology

Serac has proven the reliability of its Agami thermoforming machines in the drinking yoghurt business. Recently the company announced that Agami, which is for the production of bottles from PS or PP reels, has been adapted to thermoforming of bottles out of pre-printed PP reels.

The technical challenges of this new development were to define precisely the features required for the PP sheet as well as for the printing inks, and to provide perfect positioning of the printed reel together with precise advance rate control.

Serac therefore equipped its Agami machines with sensors and sets of cameras that ensure fast initial machine setting with minimum waste, and systematically check that the PP sheet is at the right place for the next stroke during production. The on-site bottle manufacturing, which uses a vertical thermoforming process and requiring no labeler or sleeve applicator, probably offers the smallest footprint, according to Serac.

Dairy drink recently launched in Turkey. The bottle is produced out of pre-printed polypropylene sheet reels using Agami technology (below)

Agami technology: more than machines

For all Agami projects, Serac provides technical assistance on plastic sheet machinability as well as tests under real manufacturing conditions (pilot molds, pre-printed PP). The company also proposes a full range of services around packaging design that include bottle creation, 3D printed samples for design testing and closing system optimization.

Agami technology: World Dairy Innovation Award winner

Main benefits:

• Economical on-site manufacturing equipment with low energy consumption; low plastic weight per bottle ; possibility of producing bottles out of pre-printed plastic sheets (no sleeve required)
• Space saving: vertical process ; bottles go directly to the filling machine (no storage tanks and unscramblers needed)
• Easy to shut down and restart, and requires very few plastic processing skills
• Versatile : PP or PS as raw material; various design possibilities, shapes and appearances,  standard or calibrated necks

Main applications:

• Standard, squeezable or microwavable bottles
• From 100 ml up to 500 ml
• For pasteurized milks, drinking yogurts, probiotics, ESL dairy drinks, sterilized milks, UHT flavored milks...

With three new Agami machines recently sold in the U.S.A and Europe for PP thermoforming, Serac confirms the benefits and reliability of its innovative technology as well as a real interest from the dairy market for on-site bottles production.