Keeping the bottle lines flowing…

Article by Andrea Husson, Genius PR, France

_

Founded in Germany in 1951, Krones AG designs, develops, manufactures and installs systems around the world for filling and packaging technology, conforming to the High-Purity Standards. The company provides systems worldwide to breweries and drink manufacturers as well as to the food, chemical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In order to maintain its dominant market position, Krones must take into account all general conditions in its installations and particularly, the specific interconnection of all individual aggregates in complying with the highest quality criteria.

As a result of this philosophy, Krones AG has become a global market leader, filling or labelling more than one in four bottles throughout the world. The plant in Flensburg, approximately five kilometres from the Danish border, is the company’s most northerly production location. Bottle cleaning systems, pasteurisers, crate washers and steam tunnels are constructed, manufactured and assembled there.

The Krones’ MetaPure bottle-to-bottle PET-recycling plant is also located at the plant, together with the pilot plan for cleaning and product treatment. Many corporate approvals recognise Krones’ recycling for direct use of containers which come into contact with foodstuffs.

Welding to High Purity Standards

Continual investment in joining and, in particular, the latest welding technology, is key to Krones quality. “Everything that is produced here has to be welded and it has to be extremely high quality according to the High-Purity Standards,” explains Frank Schimpf, quality inspector at Flensburg. “To achieve this, we have harmonised almost all worldwide relevant regulations to create our own ‘B+’ standard.” Special attention is paid to the stainless steel parts of the installation that touch the product. Consequently, the proportion of automated TIG orbital welding is increasing steadily at Flensburg where, as in its other plants, Krones trusts in technology from Polysoude. Recommendations, regulations and standards on surface finishes, which will subsequently come into contact with customers’ products such as drinks or medicines, define the required quality of stainless steel welded connections, conforming to both European and American laws.

The book “Hygiene in Food Processing”(1) written by the world’s leading experts, provides a comprehensive and authoritative publication of good hygiene practice for the food and beverage industry. The authors focus on hygienic equipment design which strongly recommends the use of automatic orbital TIG welding for pipework. A good manual welder could produce quality welds, however, an automated orbital welding machine guarantees quality together with sustained consistency. Only in this way can quality be produced repeatedly, whilst at the same time ensuring high levels of efficiency.

Automated orbital welding delivers the smooth weld seams required for adequate cleaning. The seam roots end flush with the internal pipe wall and there is minimal heat input with only the lowest levels of oxidation, which can be removed easily by etching, if necessary.

Orbital TIG welding

When high quality welds are required, orbital TIG welding is the ideal technology for tube-to-tube or tube-totubesheet welding applications. With or without filler wire this is a stable, reliable process that can be used on steel, stainless steel, titanium and nickel and aluminium alloys, for example. The development of a welding program guarantees a high-quality weld through automation. The welding cycle can be repeated as often as necessary with the same result. On all of these machines, the welding parameters can be checked and compiled into a printable protocol for guaranteed traceability.