Turnkey coffee line

NESTLé Deutschland AG’s plant at Mainz on the  River  Rhine produces the Nescafé brand, and  cocoa-based drinks like Nesquik and Nestlé Finest Hot Chocolate, with about 400 staff achieving a total output of 24,000 tonnes of finished merchandise each year–from roasting the raw coffee beans, freezing and spray-drying, all the way through to filling and end-of-the-line packaging.

Until the start of 2011, the facility in Mainz packaged its Nescafé on a Nescafé Classic line for 50-, 100- and 200-gram jars at speeds of up to 320 jars a minute (19,200 jars an hour) plus two Nescafé Gold lines, each rated at 200 jars a minute (12,000 jars an hour), one of them capable of handling both square and round jars. When in 2009 the Nestlé Group kicked off the “Ergos” project by re-launching the container for Nescafé Gold, thought also had to be given at the facility in Mainz as well, to revamping the labelling and filling capabilities for Nescafé Gold.

A new standard of labelling
The goal of Nestlé’s Ergos project was to set a new standard of labelling excellence for a glass package of instant coffee, designed to stand out distinctively from its competitors on the supermarket shelves. In very close and mutually supportive cooperation with Krones and the glassworks of  the  supply  chain,  Nestlé  Product Technology Centre in Orbe, Switzerland, had developed an entirely new and highly attractive container shape, which they called “24 K”: with concave recesses on four sides and flattened edges, the jar is dressed in high, narrow body and back labels affixed by cold gluing, and self-adhesive side and lid labels for product specifications. Label, adhesive and above all, the labelling technology involved, had to be precisely matched to the new design concept. Trials using the Bonamatic labellers installed at all the plants showed that these had come up against their performative limits with the elaborate processes involved. As a sensible alternative, Nestlé opted for Topmodule labellers rated at 19,800 containers an hour, supplemented by a Checkmat featuring specially developed software and a dynamic upstream buffer.

One sizeable line replaces two smaller ones
This configuration was to be the same for all facilities in which the new Ergos concept for Nescafé Gold had been earmarked for implementation, and which included the plant in Mainz. However, since for historical reasons it housed two relatively small lines, each rated at 12,000 containers an hour, whose total capacity was anyway higher than the output actually required, Nestlé Deutschland AG decided to replace the two smaller lines in their entirety with one large one. Nestlé Mainz placed the requisite order with Krones, whose labelling technology and bulk glass depalletising kit had already proved its worth in the line filling Nescafé Classic installed back in 2002.

As the turnkey vendor involved, Krones coordinated existing machinery with its own new machines and kit from other vendors. An existing fulls inspector had been earmarked for continued use, as were a linear air rinser, induction sealing units and a pallet wrapper. Krones integrated a filler from the Optima company, which specialises in powder filling, and a closer from Zalkin. The remaining kit supplied by Krones was manufactured in-house.

“Our  lines  are  usually  given  a U-shaped layout,” explains Bernhard Rau, foreperson in the filling and packaging hall. “The containers are passed from the dry end to the separate filling zone, and back into the packaging segment.”

The pallets of bulk glass are fed in, and the film is removed, after which a Krones Pressant bulk glaZoom Kobe XI ZK11