New bourbon bottle goes down smoothly - the line - Brief Article

The packaging connoisseur knows that a bottle should go down the packaging line as smoothly as a good bourbon slides down your gullet.

For Ancient Age bourbon, the new shape of its polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle not only pleases retailers and consumers, but it also improved the company's production efficiencies by 40%.

The bottle's manufacturer, Schmalbach Lubeca, was replacing the blow molding equipment that had been producing the PET containers, says Chris McCrory, brand director for Sazerac bourbons. "Simultaneously, we were looking for a way to improve our production efficiencies. So we thought it might be a good time to reevaluate the design," McCrory says.

The earlier PET bottle had a traditional square base that sometimes had trouble orienting itself on the line, affecting labeling accuracy, production speed and efficiency.

"Although we wanted to keep the square look of the container, we also wanted to see if it could be modified in some way to improve our production rates," McCrory says.

The new design now has a round footprint with a square body--what they call a "squircular" design. The round base helps give the bottle stability while allowing the body to retain its familiar square shape. In addition, an "intravenous slot" or notch--located where the sidewall meets the base--was included and is used to orient the bottles for labeling without disturbing the aesthetics or negatively affecting the stability. The 83-gram weight bottle also features a pinch grip and the brand name--Ancient Age--embossed on the shoulder.

Fewer labels, faster speeds

As a result of the design modifications, the bottle's neck had to be elongated to accommodate volume requirements.

"The longer neck also was a bonus," McCrory says. "Formerly, we were using three labels--front, back and neck--to convey all the necessary information. With a longer neck, we've been able to eliminate the need for a back label by taking the information that used to be there and adding it to the larger neck label. This has reduced our label costs and also added to an improvement in reduction efficiencies."

McCrory says the new design has given Sazerac a 40% improvement in production efficiency.

Before the design modification, Sazerac needed as many as seven additional people on the production line to troubleshoot orientation and labeling problems. Not only have most of those employees been moved from the line, but the bottle's new shape also has enabled it to be run on a different, faster line. This allows the former line to be dedicated to other sizes and be subjected to one less changeover, increasing productivity in other areas as well.

"We also have gotten tremendous feedback from wholesalers, retailers and consumers. They love the new shape of the bottle. We consider it to be a real success," McCrory says.

Schmalbach Lubeca (734) 428-9741 www.schmalbach.com

COPYRIGHT 2001 Stagnito Communications
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group