CM MASTER

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BLOW MOULDING
Catch of the day
With a business model that extends across distribution and manufacturing,
a Canadian firm is widening its net across the packaging sector.
Steven Pacitti reports
T
he company may be a “sardine” according
to vice president Paul Saltz, when compared to some of the major converters
that visitors to NPE 2015 in Orlando, Florida
would have met, but Salbro Bottle is far from
being low in the food chain.
As a niche packaging manufacturer operating small- to medium-size runs for customers
in the food, cosmetic, nutraceutical, personal
care, and industrial sectors, the Canadian company, like a sardine, is perhaps rich in substance despite its size.
“We have got seven machines and a couple
of preform machines,” explained Saltz, during
a meeting at the company’s 95,000sqft site in
Woodbridge, Ontario. “We’re not just a PET
bottle maker though as we also do packaging
component distribution for materials including
HDPE and glass.”
In fact, Salbro Bottle – the ‘Salbro’ name
comes from a combination of the Saltz surname and the fact that it is run by three brothers – comes from a history of distribution and
silk-screening, although it is no longer
involved in the latter.
Salbro Bottle’s manufacturing arm, called
PET Power Containers Inc. (not to be confused
with the European company PET Power,
which is now owned by RPC Group along with
M&H), operates predominantly from the
Woodbridge site, although the company also
has a small PET facility in Newfoundland as
the freight costs to deliver to that area are exorbitant.
“We also blow bottles there for the liquor
and water industry,” he said.
With speed often of the essence in the fastmoving food industry, Salbro Bottle goes
beyond the concept of standard in-house design
and has 3D printing capacity. Acquired five
years ago, before the company could design a
bottle, the 3D printer outside of the meeting
room enables Salbro to turn ideas into physical
product in just a few weeks.
As if to illustrate what it brings to the company, Saltz made a full-size 3D model of a bottle (that was still warm) in the short time it
took this magazine editor to visit the restroom.
“It uses ABS material. A customer comes to
us and we produce a 2D drawing for them, and
then that progresses to a 3D drawing that they
can play with. Only at that point do we produce
a model, as they are expensive to manufacture,” said Saltz.
The 3D model can be run down a standard
filling and/or labelling line to see how the bottle will work, and to identify any required
changes.
Stock control
As a distributor with a lot of online business,
Salbro Bottle keeps large amounts of stock for
distribution. It owns the main building from
which it operates but rents two other adjoined
properties, although Saltz is keen to streamline the operation.
“We have to transfer preforms from a warehouse to the manufacturing building, but we’d
like to have the two under the same roof, especially as we still buy 60 per cent of the preforms we use,” he explained. “We will keep
distribution storage where it is and continue to
focus on just-in-time delivery.”
Visitors to the manufacturing facility cannot help but notice the vast collection of
moulds on the shelves (packed like sardines if
you will). Up to 400 moulds, including those
supplied by the likes of VP Mold, Blow Mold
Engineering and Compact Mold, are retained
on site to enable efficient production, with
changeovers possible in as little as half an
hour.
“We produce a lot of different bottles here,
including some using two-stage blow moulding
that many would think aren’t possible,”
claimed Saltz.
An example of the innovative projects that
Above left: Up to 400 moulds are retained on site. Above right: End-of-line processes are largely performed by people
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Plastics in Packaging © 2015 Sayers Publishing Group • July
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Main: Being a manufacturer and a distributor gives Salbro Bottle, with Paul Saltz as its vice president, a strong portfolio. Above middle: Salbro Bottle can produce a
3D bottle in less time than it takes to visit the washroom. Above right: Tinted bottles are among the innovative concepts available from the company
the company has been involved with is an
award-winning package consisting of four triangular-shaped PET bottles that nest together
which, according to Saltz, took six weeks to
convert from idea to bottle.
“We also did a triangular glass bottle for
the same customer. Sadly, the project stopped
when the man behind it died but his plan was
to use the triangular PET bottles for flavoured
olive oils. We could still offer this concept to
market though, as we own the design.
“We get a lot of ideas from customers and in
the area of cosmetics especially, for PET and
HDPE, some customers like to test out various
ideas to see what works best.”
An example is a range of metallised bottles
that Salbro Bottle promotes on its Twitter
feed.
It is not just the packaging that Salbro Bottle differentiates itself with; even the company’s machinery has a novel twist to it. For
example, it has preform machines supplied by
Nissei ASB, a Japanese firm usually associated with the production of one-stage injection
stretch blow moulding equipment.
“The ASB PM-70/65N utilises vertical
injection, which makes for a nice preform. I
have two Nissei ASB machines and nine sets
of moulds for it.”
A 12-cavity model produces 54g (heavy)
preforms at 50,000 parts per hour, while a 16cavity system produces 36g preforms at 70,000
parts per hour. Both run 15-20 second cycles.
On the blow moulding side, Saltz believes
that cheap moulds are the main advantage of
two-stage production, with the high cost of
preforms being its biggest disadvantage.
“We have eight million preforms here. It’s
easy to have silos to store preform resin,” he
said, pointing to the Columbian Tec Tank silo
stationed outside the building, which houses
80,000lb of resin.
Blow moulding is essentially performed on
Amsler Equipment all-electric reheat stretch
blow moulding machines, with six Amsler systems on-site in Ontario and another machine
in its Newfoundland facility. And there’s more
to come, claims Saltz.
“We’re looking to add compressors (the company’s two existing compressors are made by
Gardner Denver) and two machines in the next
12 months, with another Amsler to be
installed here. We may even go one-stage for a
new project and capitalise on its advantages in
that particular area.”
One of the key advantages of buying Amsler
machines for Saltz is the local service, which is
imperative for a company like Salbro Bottle.
“If a PLC goes down on one of our Amsler
machines at 2pm, we could have another by
6pm. The same would not be true of any European machines we might have,” he said.
The existing Amsler machines are basic
electric servo-driven L22 systems capable of
producing around 3,000 bottles an hour, but
the new machine will be an L32X convertible
linear PET stretch machine of the narrow neck
series with capacity for up to 4,800 bottles an
hour ranging from 50cl to 5-litre.
“In 2002 our options were limited to Mag
Plastic or Amsler but the latter helped us to get
the business on the road and helped teach us
processing. In addition, the Mag machine was
not all-electric.”
Salbro Bottle does have one Spanish
SIDE machine – a TMS 1002e that is capable
of producing 2,800 3-litre bottles per hour
– which Saltz says features two ovens and
enables the company to balance its production
better thanks to the ability to have different
temperatures on the two preforms.
During Plastics in Packaging’s visit, the
SIDE machine was producing a baby bottle.
Added Saltz, the presence of two platens for
opening and shutting ensures a smooth production process.
Other packages being produced during our
tour included a spice bottle manufactured
using a commodity preform, which has its top
trimmed off after blowing to create a proprietary end.
End-of-line processes are largely carried out
by staff, although Saltz did admit that the company will look at automating end-of-line for
bigger bottles.
“We will not automate on shorter runs
because it takes too long to set up,” he said.
While many production runs reach millions, Saltz says that 15,000 is the smallest run
that the company would consider.
“We are growing in every sector organically
and we are currently focusing our business in
the North American market,” he added.
“Plastics is 85 per cent of our business and this
emphasis will not change.”
You could say that this innovative packaging fish has no plans to pack sardines in a can.
At least not for now, anyway.
More information from Salbro Bottle Inc, 350 Vaughan Valley
Blvd, Woodbridge, Ontario L4H 3C3, Canada. Tel: 1 905 850 1190.
Fax: 1 905 850 3923. www.salbrobottle.com
Plastics in Packaging © 2015 Sayers Publishing Group • July
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