Altmuhltaler Mineral Brunnen, Bottling Line, Germany

In August 2007, German mineral water bottling company Altmühltaler Mineralbrunnen GmbH announced the construction of a new super-scale water bottling facility (‘Vitacqua’ project) on a greenfield site in Breuna, Kassel, Germany. The investment for the new facility is around €100m.

Altmühltaler produces bottled mineral water brands for large German retail chains, hotels and restaurants. The company has several facilities in Treuchtlingen, Central Franconia and Baruth, a small town near Berlin.

PROJECT

The new plant is being constructed on a turnkey basis by German packaging company Krones AG. The contract for the installation of the plant equipment was signed in January 2007. Although Krones is the main contractor, it was not responsible for the construction of the building.

The project was completed on schedule in September 2007 and the plant came on-stream in November 2007.

Krones have provided all the processing, filling, storage and distribution technology.

The plant includes production and bottling facilities for still and carbonated water products and also soft drinks if required. Krones also supplied filters and the water softening system along with low-pressure compressors and a heating plant.

There are four mixing lines which can supply products to one of the four PET bottling lines installed at the plant. Each bottling line has a Contiform S24 blow moulding machine with a throughput of over 44,000 bottles per hour. Initially the lines will bottle in 0.5l and 1.5l formats, but there is also the capability to bottle in 2l containers. The facility will be able to fill around four million bottles per day.

PACKING AND STORAGE

Krones has also supplied the warehousing and distribution systems, including the IT control systems. Following the filling process, bottles are collated into the required format (usually six pack-format) and then shrink-wrapped and fitted with handles using a Variopack machine.

The packs are then stacked on Düsseldorfer half-pallets, which are then packed two to a europallet. The europallets are then taken by a suspended monorail system, which stores the pallets automatically in a high-bay warehouse with around 50,000 slots (enough to store 100,000 Düsseldorfer pallets).

At the dispatch area pallets of drinks and water are obtained from the automated warehouse and placed on gravity roller conveyors ready for shipping. Trucks with rear-docking capability can then be loaded by the drivers from the docking area using manual platform stackers. There are no fork-lifts at the facility.

A fleet management system (also by Krones) at the plant notifies drivers when it is their turn to load.